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APAUK. CALLE- Z- =---i_0 Ens- 

tralsd. 
ON THE WARPATH. Dlosaated. 
THE QUEST OF THE RSH-OOG SKIM. 

SINOPAH, THE INDIAN BOY. IBostra-sd. 
WiTH THE INDIANS IN THE ROCKIES 



MY UFE AS AN INDIAN. Dbsti^aed. 



HOUGHTON* MIFFLIN COMP.^SY 
Bost:x i-s- N-TrY;£X 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 




I CUT HIS ROPE AT THE STAKE 



APAUK 

Caller of BufFalo 

By 

James Willard Schultz 

With Illustrations 




Boston and New York 

Houghton Mifflin Company 

®l)e mitjcrisjde ^u^i <Jtambriti0e 

1916 






COFYRIGHT, 1915 AND I916, BY TH* SFRAGUX PUBLISHING COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY JAMKS WILLARD SCHULTZ 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Publish*d Septtmher jQib 



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il^ 



SEP 27 1916 



A4385aG 



Illustrations 

I CUT HIS ROPE AT THE STAKE (page 31) Frontispiece 

I FIRED AN ARROW DOWN AT THE SMALL OF THE 

BACK OF A BIG COW 23 

All ADMIRED THE GUN THAT I HAD TAKEN . . 39 

He even growled at me and made ready to 

FIGHT 167 



APAUK 

Caller of Buffalo 

INTRODUCTORY 

ALTHOUGH I had known Apauk 
— Flint Knife — for some time, 
it was not until the winter of 
1879-80 that I became intimately ac- 
quainted with him. He was at that time 
the oldest member of the Piegan tribe of 
the Blackfeet Confederacy, and certainly 
looked it, for his once tall and powerful fig- 
ure was shrunken and bent, and his skin 
had the appearance of wrinkled brown 
parchment. 

In the fall of 1879, the late Joseph Kipp 
built a trading-post at the junction of the 
Judith River and Warm Spring Creek, near 
where the town of Lewistown, Montana, 
now stands, and as usual I passed the winter 
there with him. We had with us all the 
bands of the Piegans, and some of the bands 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

of the Blood tribe, from Canada. The coun- 
try was swarming with game, buffalo, elk, 
antelope, and deer, and the people hunted 
and were care-free and happy, as they had 
ever been up to that time. 

Camped beside our trading-post was old 
Hugh Monroe, or Rising Wolf, who had 
joined the Piegans in 1816, and it was 
through him that I came to know Apauk 
well enough to get the story of his remark- 
ably adventurous and romantic youth. The 
two old men were great chums. Old as they 
were — Monroe was born in 1798, and 
Apauk was several years his senior — on 
pleasant days they mounted their horses and 
went hunting, and seldom failed to bring 
in game of some kind. And what a pic- 
turesque pair they were ! Both wore capotes 
— hooded coats made from three-point Hud- 
son Bay Company blankets — and leggins 
to match, and each carried an ancient Hud- 
son Bay fuke, or • flint-lock gun. They 
would have nothing to do with cap rifles, or 
the rim-lire cartridge, repeating weapons of 
modern make. Hundreds — yes, thousands 
of head of various game, many a savage 
grizzly, and a score or two of the enemy — 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Sioux, Cree, Crow, Cheyenne, and Assini- 
boine, had they killed with the sputtering 
pieces, and they were their most cherished 
possessions. 

Oh, that I could live over again those buf- 
falo days ! Those winter evenings in Mon- 
roe's or Apauk's lodge, listening to their 
tales of the long ago ! Nor was I the only 
interested listener : always there was a com- 
plete circle of guests around the cheerful 
fire ; old men, to whom the tales brought 
memories of their own eventful days, and 
young men, who heard with intense inter- 
est of the adventures of their grandfathers, 
and of the " calling of the buffalo," which 
strange and wonderful method of obtaining 
at one swoop a whole tribe's store of winter 
food, they were never to witness. For the 
luring of whole herds of buffalo to their 
death had been Apauk's sacred, honored, 
and danger-fraught avocation. He had been 
the most successful caller the confederacy 
of tribes had ever known, and so close 
to the gods was he believed to be that the 
people accorded him a position more hon- 
ored than that of the greatest chief. As 
will be seen, the man himself had most 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

implicit faith in his medicine ; his dreams, 
the wanderings of his shadow while his body 
slept, were as real to him as was any act of 
his in broad daylight. 

I did not, of course, get Apauk's story of 
his life in the sequence in which it is here 
laid down. On consecutive evenings he would 
relate incidents far apart in time, and only 
by later questionings would I be able to fill 
in the gaps. But at last I got together the 
whole of it, to my own satisfaction, and I 
hope the reader may get as much pleasure 
from the story as I did in the hearing of it. 

Apauk, bringer of plenty, died with five 
hundred of his people during the Starvation 
Winter, 1881-83, on the Blackfeet Reser- 
vation. 




CHAPTER I 



TWO of the sayings of my people are 
burned into my memory. One is, 
" Poverty is unhappiness"; the other, 
"Those without relatives are very poor." 
Both were more than true of Pitaki, my 
twin sister, and me, in our tenth winter, 
for it was then that we lost our good father 
and mother and all their property, and we 
had not one relative, man or woman. 

It happened this way: We, the Pikuni, 
were encamped on the Two Medicine River, 
and our brother tribe, the Kaina, were hunt- 
ing on Milk River, two days' ride away. 
Came from there a messenger to my father 

5 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

saying he could now have the medicine pipe 
that he had so long been trying to buy from 
Low Wolf. The price was one horse, three 
tails of eagle feathers, a pair of shell ear- 
rings, and a steel spear that my father had 
captured in a raid against the people of the 
always-summer land, far to the south. 

It was a big price that Low Wolf asked 
for the medicine, and my father considered 
it for three days before he made up his mind 
what to do. On top of the other things, to 
ask a horse seemed unreasonable. Horses 
were rare and valuable animals in those days ; 
many of our people were still using dogs 
for carrying burdens ; our young men were 
just beginning to bring in big herds of horses 
from the far south country of the Spaniards, 
so very far away that the war trail thence 
and back was two summers and a winter in 
length. We had only six horses, three for 
packing our lodge and property, and three 
for riding, my sister and I riding double 
when camp was moved. 

After all, it was my mother who settled 

my father's mind. She knew how much he 

wanted that pipe, because it was truly great 

medicine and would cure the pain he suf- 

6 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

fered from an old wound in his side. So she 
said: — 

" Give the horse, my man, give it. Let us 
have the pipe. Nearly all my life I have 
walked beside the dogs when camp was 
moving, and I can do so again." 

" You are truly generous," my father told 
her. " As you say, so I shall do, but you 
shall not walk. Hereafter, when we move 
camp, we will mount the children behind 
us. And then, in the spring, I shall again go 
to war and do my best to capture a big herd 
of horses from the enemy." 

Because the weather was very cold, and 
the trip to the Kai'na camp and back would 
be a short one, it was arranged that Pitaki 
and I should stop in the lodge of No Runner 
during our parents' absence. Pitaki was glad 
to do that, for No Runner had five little 
girls, all her friends, and she loved to be 
with them. But I pleaded to go with my 
father ; I wanted to see the beautiful cere- 
mony of his taking over the medicine pipe. 
The ways of the gods are strange. Maybe 
they put it into my father's mind to tell me 
no, that I must remain there and take care 
of my sister. He and my mother hurried 

7 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the next morning to make an early start. At 
daylight I brought in the horses. When I 
came in they had the lodge down, and 
everything ready to pack, and just at sun- 
rise they struck out south. 

" Be good children while we are gone," 
said my mother, as she got into the saddle. 

" Yes, be good. We shall be gone only 
five nights," said my father. We answered 
that we should be good, and watched them 
out of sight, and then ran to No Runner's 
lodge for our morning meal. 

The five nights passed. Came the sixth 
day, and at noon, as the day was sunny and 
warm, Pitaki and I went up from the valley 
to the edge of the plain to watch for our 
parents' coming, that we might run and 
greet them as soon as they were near. They 
did not come. 

"Well, they will come to-morrow," said 
Pitaki, as we hurried down to camp as night 
shadows began to darken the valley. 

"Yes, to-morrow, sure," I answered. 

But they came not on that day. Nor the 
next day. Nor the day after that, although 
from sunrise to sunset we two watched from 
the rim of the plain for sight of them. And 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the longer we watched the more we worried ; 
it was not like my father to say five nights 
and not mean that number exactly. We began 
to fear that one or the other of them was 
sick, or maybe hurt from the fall of a horse. 

Late in the afternoon of the sixth day of 
our watch, we saw with tired eyes a band 
of eight riders coming on the trail, one of 
them a woman. We were sure that she 
was our mother, and one of the others our 
father, that they were coming with some 
of the Kai'na people on a visit to our camp. 
But when they had come closer, we saw 
that they were all Kai'na and our hearts 
were like heavy stones inside us. 

But we should have news of the long ab- 
sent ones. We ran and met the riders, cry- 
ing, "Where are our father and mother? 
What news of them can you tell us ? " 

They just sat on their horses and stared at 
us, and at last the woman asked : — 

"Your father — your mother. Who are 
they ? " 

" Two Bears ! Sings Alone ! " I shouted. 
" You know them. They went ten days ago 
to your camp to buy Low Wolf's medicine 
pipe. You must have seen them there." 

9 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

They all stared at us, and at one another 
a long time in silence, and one by one each 
shook his head ; and at last one of them 
said : — 

" There is a mistake somewhere, children. 
Your father is not in our camp, nor has he 
been there this winter. And I know that 
Low Wolf still has his medicine pipe : I 
saw the sacred bundle of it only two nights 
ago." 

At that Pitaki sat down and began to cry, 
" They are dead. My mother, my father, 
they are dead." 

The Kai'na woman got down and tried 
to comfort her. " Take courage, little girl," 
she said. " Most likely they somewhere on 
the trail lost their horses, and are looking 
for them." 

And then she took Pitaki up behind her, 
and we all went down the hill to camp. 
Pitaki did take courage ; but right then I 
knew that our father and mother were lost 
forever. 

When good-hearted No Runner heard 
from me that the Kai'na had seen nothing 
of the absent ones, he went straight to the 
chief's lodge with the news, and the chief 

ID 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

at once sent for some of the Kai'na visitors. 
When he learned from their own mouths 
that my father and mother were not in their 
camp, nor had been there, he ordered out 
the Siezer band of the All Friends Society 
to search for them. They left camp that 
very evening, forty or fifty young men. 
Every one of the band that had a horse, or 
could borrow one, joined in the search. 

They were gone five nights. Five nights 
of hope for my sister, of despair for me. I 
knew what they would say when they re- 
turned. No, perhaps I did have a little hope, 
a little, faint, secret hope that I would see 
our loved ones again, but that quickly died 
when I looked upon the faces of the search- 
ers as they came riding through camp to 
the chief's lodge. Hand in hand Pitaki and I 
followed them, and heard the chief ask : — 

" Well, what learned ye ? " 

And the leader's answer : — 

" Nothing. There is no trace of them 
along the trail, nor on Badger, Birch, Back 
Fat, and Scattering Timber Creeks. We 
went even to the Kai'na camp. They had 
not been there." 

"Now, this is strange, that a man, a woman. 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

six horses, lodge and lodge poles and prop- 
erty, should cross the country and leave no 
trace of their passing," the chief cried. "Are 
you sure that you used your eyes?" 

The leader was patient with the old man 
and softly answered : " You forget that there 
have been snows, and warm black-winds 
since Two Bears and his woman left us. 
These alone, to say nothing of the passing 
of riders, and countless herds of buffalo and 
antelope, were enough to wipe out the foot- 
prints of their horses." 

"Then, what can have happened to them ? " 
the chief asked. 

He received I know not how many dif- 
ferent answers. There are a thousand ways 
for people to disappear. Death in many, 
many forms is ever lurking by the trails. 
My own belief is that a war party killed 
them, then cached their lodge and lodge 
poles, and rode away with their horses and 
property. At the time I had no thought but 
that we were certainly never to see father 
and mother again. I felt Pitaki's hand slip 
from mine. She fell, and for a little while 
was dead. No Runner picked her up and 
we went to his lodge. There, when life 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

came back to her, she began to cry, to 
mourn for our lost ones, and for days could 
not be comforted. And, if I did not cry, I 
felt as badly as she did. For long days, and 
moons, for many a winter and summer, we 
were to know what it is to be without fa- 
ther's and mother's loving care — and the 
trail that we were to follow was to be a 
hard one. 

Said No Runner and his woman: "Take 
courage, children. We are poor, but this 
lodge shall be your lodge. We will do all 
we can for you. Anyhow, there is plenty 
of meat ; you shall not starve." 

Yes, of food there was plenty. No Run- 
ner was a good hunter. But there were so 
many in that lodge, he and his woman, five 
daughters, a grandfather and grandmother, 
that there was little room for us. And must 
I tell it? Yes. As the days passed, the five 
daughters of the lodge began to let us see 
in many ways that they did not want us 
there. The two oldest, when their father 
and mother were not around, would say 
mean things to us about our poverty, our 
poor clothes, and order us to do things as 
though we were slaves. Myself, I did not 

13 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

much mind that, but many a time I found 
Pitaki crying because of their arrow-sharp 
words, and that did hurt me. I knew that we 
must soon leave that lodge, and began to 
look about for one where we might be wel- 
come. 

Came an evening when No Runner loudly 
scolded his daughters because of their bad 
words to us. All the near lodges, all passers 
heard him, and when he had done and the 
two oldest daughters had gone out behind 
the lodge to cry, there came in a little, 
slender, old woman named Suyaki, she of 
pleasant voice. A beautiful, singing voice 
she had. 

As women do, she took her seat near the 
doorway, and No Runner cried out: "Wel- 
come, Suyaki. Welcome you are in this 
lodge. Now, what can I do for you.?'* 

"Oh, chief! Good heart! You can do 
much for me. You can give me these two 
fatherless and motherless ones to be my 
children," she answered. " As you know, 
my good old man is dead. His shadow has 
gone to the Sand Hills. My daughters, my 
sons, want me to live with them, but I can- 
not give up my own little lodge, my little 
14 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

properties, my habit of long years to go and 
come, and do always as I please. Give me 
the children, chief, to be company to me — 
to make laughter in my lodge once more. 
Oh, I promise you, I will be good to 
them." 

Now, when she said that, so earnestly that 
her voice trembled; when, as she talked, I 
saw tears gather in her eyes and roll down 
her fine wrinkled face, why, my heart was 
hers at once. I looked at Pitaki. Her eyes 
were shining ; she was anxiously watching 
No Runner to hear what he would say. 
And he said : — 

"The gods are good. My woman and I, 
we love these fatherless and motherless ones, 
and we know that they are not happy here. 
Our lodge is crowded — there are other 
things — no matter. I was just praying to 
be shown what to do with them — for 
them, and you come straight in with the 
answer. Take them, if they will go with 
you, take them." 

Almost before he had said the last word, 
Pitaki cried out, " We will go with you, 
Suyaki, oh, yes, we will go with you." 
While saying so she was turning and begin- 

15 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ning to gather up the buffalo robes that made 
her bed. Every one laughed at her haste. 

The old woman looked at me. I just made 
the sign for yes. I could not speak. I could 
not tell how glad I was that she wanted us. 

Said No Runner, as we were going out, 
" Suyaki, be not sparing with the meat. A 
plenty you shall have of my own killing." 

As it was, we were carrying a parfleche 
full of fine dried meat and back fat that his 
good woman had given us. So it was that 
we left our father's band, the Small Robes, 
and went to live in the upper end of camp 
with the Lone Eaters, itself a very large 
band. Why the ancient ones gave the band 
that name I do not know. Certainly its 
members did not eat alone ; they gave as 
many feasts as any others of our tribe. 

" There, my children, my children ! " said 
Suyaki when we were come into her lodge 
and she had uncovered the coals in the fire- 
place and laid wood upon them. "My lodge 
is your lodge. I will move my couch to 
the right of the doorway. You, my son, are 
the man here, so your couch shall be at the 
rear. And you, my daughter, make your bed 
there at the left of the doorway." 
i6 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

So it was that Suyaki gave us a home in 
her little, worn, old lodge. Except for a 
few parfleches containing her few clothes, 
her woman trinket-savings of many winters, 
and her tanning implements, it was quite 
bare, and more than large enough for the 
three of us. All her man's things had been 
buried with him, or had been taken by the 
three married sons. Horses she had not, but 
she did have eight fine, big dogs of the an- 
cient, wolf-like breed, for packing her lodge 
and things when camp was moved. 

True to his promise. No Runner gave us 
much meat of his killing, and Suyaki's sons 
and daughters gave us some, and all the buf- 
falo hides and skins of the deer kind we 
needed for clothing and bedding. My sister 
had never done any tanning, but now, with- 
out being asked, she began work on the 
lighter skins and was soon able to make 
soft leather. When, with a little help, she 
made a pair of moccasins for me, and saw 
how well they fitted when I put them on, 
she was so pleased that she cried. After 
that she made all my footwear, of buffalo 
robe for winter, and of leather with par- 
fleche soles for summer. 

17 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Nor was I idle. Whenever they would let 
me, I went hunting with No Runner and 
Suyaki's sons, and helped them butcher and 
bring in the meat. When there was noth- 
ing else to do, I practiced shooting with the 
bows and arrows that No Runner made for 
me, and oh, how good I felt when I killed 
my first rabbit and brought it to our lodge. 
Also, I joined the Mosquitoes, the boys' band 
of the All Friends Society, and never failed 
to attend the meetings which the old men 
called for the purpose of teaching us to be- 
come good warriors and hunters. 

What did they teach us ? Well, I shall 
never forget an early morning when an old 
man named Red Crow went from lodge to 
lodge, calling us out to bathe in the river 
with him, and then led us to the rim of the 
valley from which we could see far up and 
down it, and away out on the plains in all 
directions. As we came near the top the old 
man said, " Get down on hands and knees 
now, all of you, and crawl the rest of the 
way. Only the foolish ones walk boldly to 
the rim of a valley, or the summit of a 
butte, to become a mark for the eyes of 
every living thing in the country. The good 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

hunter sees the game without being seen, 
and looks out a way to get within short bow 
range of it. The successful warrior is he 
who discovers the enemy without being 
discovered, and finds a way to surprise and 
attack them — or safely retreat if the party 
be too large to attack." 

We crawled after him to the top, and 
looked over the country from the shelter 
of the sagebrush, and he soon allowed us to 
sit up, because, he said, the country seemed 
to be peaceful. A war party, however, might 
be somewhere around. And after a time he 
asked, "What do you all see?" 

" Buffalo." 

" Antelope." 

"A band of elk." 

"Yes, so you do," he said; "but there is 
something else. Look again." 

We looked and looked, all over the plains 
and in the valley until our eyes became tired, 
but could see nothing else, and when we 
gave up he pointed to the north where two 
buzzards were sailing round and round not 
far above the plain. "Watch the birds as 
well as the animals," he told us. " Were 
you a war party now, you would go over 

19 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

there and see what those two are hovering 
over. You would learn if the animal had 
been killed by a traveling war party, or by 
a hunter from some camp, and when and 
in what direction the hunter or party had 
gone." 

So it was that the old men taught us. We 
learned caution; we learned that there was 
a meaning for everything we saw. A dust 
cloud, for instance, if slow moving, was 
caused by a moving camp. If fast, it was 
raised by a band of frightened game, or by 
riders pursuing it, or traveling rapidly over 
the country. Oh, I liked well those teach- 
ings in the early mornings. And just as in- 
teresting were the evenings by the lodge fire, 
where these same old men told us all about 
the gods, and dreams and strong medicines, 
and the war trails of great medicines. 

As the old men taught me the ways of the 
hunter and warrior, so Suyaki and her old 
women friends taught my sister the ways of 
a woman, and she eagerly learned to cook, 
and sew, and make her dresses and mocca- 
sins, and to do beautiful embroidery work of 
colored porcupine quills. Later, she was to 
learn all about different roots and leaves and 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

flowers, and become a great doctor of the 
sick ; but that time was still far off. 

Suyaki was good to us, and always cheer- 
ful. When we mourned for our lost ones 
she did her best to comfort us. She made 
fun of her poverty, and ours, and kept talk- 
ing of the things we should have when I 
became old enough to go to war and take 
horses, and to hunt and trap fur with which 
to buy goods from the white traders recently 
come into the northern part of our country. 
There were not yet traders on the Missouri 
and its streams. 

Poor we were. True, we always had 
enough meat to eat, mostly the poorest 
parts of the animals. But we had no fine 
clothes. Beside the boys and girls of our 
age we were like two brown buffalo birds 
in a flock of hummingbirds. Worst of all, 
we had no horses, and were always trudging 
along behind with our dogs when camp was 
moved. Nothing hurt me so much as that, 
especially when some of the boys I played 
with would prance by on their horses and 
make jokes about my being on foot. At 
such times I would pray the gods to make 
me grow fast, and comfort myself by vow- 

21 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ing that some day I would have more horses 
than any of them. 

Passed several winters and summers and 
came the time when I killed my first buf- 
falo with a real bow and real flint-pointed 
arrows given me by No Runner, who con- 
tinued ever to be our good friend. On the 
morning after he made me the present, I 
went up the valley with Pitaki and the dogs, 
some saddled and some drawing travois, my 
mind made up not to return without meat. 
Game was not plentiful near camp, and it 
was not until midday that we sighted a 
small band of buffalo, standing in the creek. 
Above them on our side was a cutbank, and 
crawling to the edge of that I fired an arrow 
down at the small of the back of a big cow. 
Away she went, the others with her, splash- 
ing up the stream and then out through the 
brush, my arrow in her almost to the feath- 
ering. Pitaki and I followed with the dogs 
as fast as we could, and out on the grassy 
bottom found her, dead. Oh, how proud I 
was ! And how Pitaki danced around the 
big animal, and hugged me, and even the 
dogs, in her happiness. And then, " Brother," 
she cried, '*here ends our poverty. From 

22 




I FIRED AN ARROW DOWN AT THE SMALL OF THE 
BACK OF A BIG COW 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

now on we shall have tongues, and boss 
ribs, and back fat, and all the other choice 
parts of meat as well as the rest of the peo- 
ple. Oh, let us hurry. Come. Get out your 
knife." 

Luckily, I had a knife, a real iron knife 
which I had bought from the traders with 
three beaver skins, which were also given 
me by No Runner. I soon had the hide 
off that cow, and the dogs loaded with all 
the fat meat they could carry. And good 
old Suyaki was so surprised and so pleased, 
when we brought the meat to the lodge, 
that she cried. Ever after that day I was 
the provider of meat and hides, and in my 
fifteenth summer I was able to buy three 
traps from the white traders on credit, and 
begin trapping beavers. In the following 
winter Suyaki and Pitaki and I were wear- 
ing our first blankets, bought with the skins 
of many beavers I had caught. 

The killing of that first buffalo and, later, 
the trapping of the beaver gave me cour- 
age. During my eighteenth winter I thought 
much about the future. I made up my mind 
to become a great warrior, so that in my 
old age I might be as big a chief as was 

25 . 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Lone Walker, chief of the Small Robes 
band, and head of the Pikuni. Because of 
his bravery, every one respected him ; and 
for his kind heart, his goodness to the poor, 
and his fairness to all, every one loved him. 

For a beginning, I went as a servant to 
No Runner, leader of a war party, on a raid 
against the Crows. We started out just as 
the new grass was beginning to show green 
on the plains, and were back home late in 
the following moon with a fine band of 
horses, my share being five head. To us 
three, five horses were riches ; we could now 
ride, and no longer trail along at the tail 
of the column when camp was moved. But 
I was not satisfied with myself: I had taken 
no part in getting the horses out from among 
the lodges of the sleeping Crows ; I had 
only kept them together at the meeting- 
place as No Runner and his men gathered 
them, a few head at a time. I wanted to 
know if I had the courage to enter the camp 
of the enemy, and face them in battle. 

So it was that, in the Berry moon, I went 
again on a raid, this time under the leader- 
ship of Ancient Badger, a young warrior of 
great promise. There were fifteen of us. 
26 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

We crossed the Backbone-of-the-World, en- 
tered the country of the Nez Perces and 
found their camp. I was Ancient Badger's 
servant. He ordered me to stand at the meet- 
ing-place and tie up the horses as he and the 
others brought them in. 

" Not until I have myself once entered 
the camp," I told him, and after much 
argument had my way. They thought that 
I was too young to undertake such danger- 
ous work. 




CHAPTER II 



THE camp, of about a hundred lodges, 
was pitched on the east side of a 
river running through a large plain. 
Bordering the stream was a narrow growth 
of cottonwoods and brush. When night fell 
we left the pine timber in which we were 
concealed and, crossing the plain, lay down 
near the first of the lodges to wait until the 
time came to begin our work. There we 
were, within short bowshot of the enemy, 
and they all unaware of our presence. They 
feasted, and danced, and visited, and we 
thought that they would never go to sleep. 
28 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

An all-night moon soon came up, and its 
light made our undertaking much more 
dangerous than if the night had been dark, 
although it would enable us to go quickly 
among the horses tied in among the lodges 
and take our choice of them. 

It was late when the last one of the lodge 
fires died out, and later still when Ancient 
Badger gave the word for us to move. I had 
no gun. I needed both hands to untie 
horses and lead them, so I kept my bow 
and arrows in the quiver at my back, and 
for defense depended upon the war club 
swinging from my right wrist. As I passed 
the first of the lodges, I learned that it was 
one thing to talk about going into the camp 
of the enemy, and another thing to do it. I 
was afraid. Afraid of everything — the shape- 
less things on the dark, shadowy side of the 
lodges might be night watchers of the sleep- 
ing camp. At any time some one might 
come out and discover me. My heart beat 
fast as I stole on to three tethered horses, 
cut the ends of their tie ropes, and led 
them out the way I had come, and only 
three or four steps at a time, until safely 
out on the plain. People will sleep soundly 
29 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

while tied horses all around them uneasily 
stamp the ground ; but the sound of just 
one animal walking steadily away will arouse 
them. 

I took my three horses across the plain to 
the edge of the pines, and was soon joined 
by my companions, each bringing two or 
three or four animals. Said Ancient Badger : — 

" You took three ? That is good. Well, stay 
here now and hold what we have, while 
the rest of us make one more entry into the 
camp. The night is far gone. We have 
time for only one more taking." 

I pleaded to be allowed to go, too, argu- 
ing that every one of the horses we had was 
safely fastened there in the pines with its 
own rope, and it was not necessary to guard 
them. And again I got my way. I had 
learned that, although I feared the danger 
in it all, there was something — some- 
thing more than the taking of the horses, 
that impelled me to go back. It was the 
danger itself — the excitement of it all, that 
drew me. 

Big, black clouds began to drift from the 
west as we again came to the camp, and 
with the clouds came a warm wind that 

30 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

told of rain. We separated, and I took my 
first trail, and went past the place where 
I had found the three, and on to another 
bunch of staked horses. One of them was a 
large black horse tied all by himself. I 
could see several bunches of the animals 
a little farther on, but I said to myself 
that if I could only get away with that 
lone, big, handsome black I should be satis- 
fied — more than satisfied with my night's 
work. I was sure that he was a swift run- 
ner, a real racer. 

I cautiously approached the black. He did 
not snort, or try to edge away from me. I 
put out my hand and stroked his smooth neck, 
and he liked it; he was gentle. So then I cut 
his rope at the stake to which it was fastened, 
made two half hitches around his nose with 
it, and started to lead him out of the camp. 

Another swift- moving cloud hid the 
moon. When it passed, and I had reached 
about the center of the camp on my way out, 
I came upon Ancient Badger approaching 
some tied horses. He motioned me to go on 
and I slowly passed him, keeping a good watch 
ahead and on all sides of me. I had not gone 
far when I heard a shout behind me, and upon 

31 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

looking around I saw a man running toward 
Ancient Badger, who had just cut the tie rope 
of a horse. The two met and Ancient Badger 
gave him a push that sent him flat on his 
back, and then he sprang onto the horse, and 
found that its front feet were short-hobbled. 
It was too late then to get down and cut the 
fastening, the fallen man was rising and shout- 
ing for help. So his heel thumped the ani- 
mal and made it start off on the jump that 
a hobbled horse must make, or else shuffle 
along at half-length step. All this happened 
much more quickly than I can tell it. The 
whole camp was aroused; as I sprang on the 
black I could see men rushing from their 
lodges, weapons in hand, and my horse 
knocked one of them down as he sprang 
from his doorway. Several guns were fired, 
and I heard the swish of arrows as I cleared 
the camp and then looked back to see how 
it was with Ancient Badger. He was com- 
ing quite swiftly on his hobbled-feet horse, 
and leaving farther and farther behind some 
men who were running after him and firing 
arrows. But I knew that there would soon 
be riders after us, and I slowed up to do what 
I could to help him. 

32 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" I am hurt. Help me. Jump down and 
cut those hobbles," he cried as he came close 
to me, and by the time I had done so, and 
was back on my horse, a number of the en- 
emy had mounted and were after us. I 
thought that we could not escape from them. 
" Take courage," said Ancient Badger. ** Ride 
as fast as you can. There is a chance for us, 
the storm is near." 

Sure enough, a storm was about to break 
upon us. In my excitement I had not noticed 
it. Almost as he spoke the wind increased, 
lightning flashed and thunder bellowed, 
and the moon suddenly was hidden behind 
the solid black of clouds. By the last of its 
light I saw that four of the enemy were gain- 
ing upon us, one quite a little distance ahead 
of the others. Of the two horses that we 
rode, mine was much the faster ; I held him 
back all the time, that Ancient Badger might 
keep up with me. He noticed it and asked, 
** You will not leave me ? There is an arrow 
in my arm, I cannot draw my bow." 

What could I answer to that but, " I am 
with you ! " 

"Then you must try to stop that nearest 
rider, fast gaining upon us," he said. 

33 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

I looked back, kept looking back, and 
after a short time could make out the dim 
form of him in the darkness, and then a flash 
of lightning showed him very close to us, gun 
in hand. Oh, how fear came upon me then, 
fear of the man, fear of the gun, far more 
terrible weapon than the bow. I had never 
faced an enemy. I had heard our warriors 
tell about it, and how great and exciting a 
thing it was to do; how eager one became 
for the fight, but I did not feel that way. I 
wished that I was back in the far-away little 
lodge with my sister and good Suyaki. 

AndthenAncientBadger cried out, "Turn 
on him. Ride low and turn on him. Don't 
let him poke his gun in our backs." 

His words made me shiver. Then, sud- 
denly, I cried silently to the gods for help, 
for courage, and it came to me. I grasped 
the handle of my war club and made the big 
black begin a half circle. Around I went 
and straight at the Nez Perce. Another flash 
of lightning came and he fired at me, where 
he had seen me by its strong blaze. But I had 
by that time bent low on my horse's neck, 
and pulled him to one side, and the ball did 
not touch me. I turned the horse back at him 

34 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

then, and coming close, was about to swing 
my war club, when another lightning flash 
showed the butt of his gun almost touching 
my right thigh as he was holding its muz- 
zle and putting powder into it. I reached 
out and grasped the weapon just above the 
lock, and jerked, and it was mine. He 
reached over and, his hands just grazing my 
arm, grasped hold of my leggin. I struck 
with the gun barrel and must have hit his 
wrists. He yelled and let go of me, and 
his horse swerved off. He began shouting for 
his comrades. I did not pursue him. On I 
went, shouting for Ancient Badger until I got 
his answer, and then saw him by the light- 
ning flashes. 

*'Oh, chief, I have his gun," I cried as I 
rode up beside him. " I have his gun and 
he is harmless." 

" Good. But he still follows. He keeps 
calling the others," he said, and just then 
the storm came upon us, fierce wind and 
blinding rain, and almost constant lightning, 
which showed the gunless man still after us, 
still shouting for the others, whom we could 
not see. 

" We must lose that man," he soon shouted 

35 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

to me. "Come, let us ride north for a 
time." 

We turned north, riding as fast as we 
could through the heavy rain, and by the 
lightning flashes saw the man turn with us. 
But the lightning soon ceased, and then we 
turned east again, with the wind and beat- 
ing rain at our backs, and in a little while 
came to the edge of the pines. There we 
stopped and listened, heard no longer the 
shouts of the enemy, nor the thud of his 
horse's feet, and were sure that we had lost 
him. But we could not tell whether our 
party and our horses were to the right or 
the left of us. We turned to the right, rid- 
ing slowly along the edge of the timber 
and softly calling them, and lo ! Almost at 
once we came upon them where they waited 
for us. Then it was that Ancient Badger for 
the first time complained of his wound, and 
had us break and pull out the arrow fast in 
his arm and the flesh of his back. 

In the darkness and rain it was impos- 
sible for us to go on through the timber 
with all the horses we had taken, and to 
remain where we were until day came 
would be to have the whole Nez Perce 

36 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

camp after us as soon as they could circle 
and find our trail. Said our leader, after 
some talk, " We will wait a little while, it 
is not more than the middle of the night, 
and then if the sky does n't clear we will 
each ride one horse, and lead one, and strike 
out." 

Again the gods were with us. Windmaker 
kept fanning his big ears and soon drove the 
rain clouds eastward. The moon came out 
and we started on our back trail, one or two 
of us in the lead, the rest driving the loose 
stock after them. A good-sized band it was, 
in all a few more than a hundred head, and 
four of them mine. It was slow traveling 
through the forest, but that was not very 
wide, and once we struck the plains on its 
far side we kept going at a lope all the rest 
of the night, and all of the following day, 
stopping only to change horses. No doubt 
the Nez Perces found our trail and followed 
it, but they never came within sight of us. 
Nor did we intend that they should. For 
four days and nights we were going nearly 
all the time. It was not until we passed the 
summit of the Backbone-of-the-World and 
looked down upon our own buffalo plains 

37 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

that we had a real rest and sleep, and plenty 
of fat meat to roast before the tire. 

Several days later we sighted the lodges of 
the Pikuni, and I was a proud boy as I rode 
my big black in among the shouting people, 
and heard on all sides my name in praise. It 
was impossible to ride through the great 
crowd. I dismounted and my sister seized 
me and so did the good Suyaki, and both 
kissed me again and again and cried over 
me. All around were great warriors, chiefs, 
medicine men, giving me greeting and 
praise, men who had never noticed me be- 
fore, and that was sweet to me. It was fine 
pay, big pay for all the dangers of the trail. 

In our little lodge I was soon resting, 
and telling the story of our raid, and in 
other lodges my companions were telling 
their stories of it. So it was that before 
dark the whole camp knew that I had 
counted the greatest coup of all — that I 
had taken a weapon, and a gun at that, 
from a living enemy. Evening was no sooner 
come than No Runner invited me to a 
feast in his lodge, and sent word for me to 
bring the gun. While I was there came 
word for us to visit Lone Walker, and show 

38 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

him the gun, so we went over. His lodge 
was crowded with the big men of the camp, 
and I was asked to tell them all about the 
raid. I did so, and they all said that I had 
done well for a beginner. 

"Just keep on the way you have started, 
and you will become as great a warrior as 
was your father," one old medicine man 
told me. 

All admired the gun that I had taken. It 
was very different from the round, short- 
barrel guns of the traders of the North. The 
barrel was long, and eight-sided, and the 
slender, polished stock had a little metal- 
covered place in one side for ball patches. I 
was offered two horses for it right there, 
but of course I would not sell. 

We had returned home just in time for 
the medicine lodge ceremonies, the building 
of the great lodge and the giving of pres- 
ents to the sun. It is during the four days 
of prayer and sacrifices that the warriors 
stand out one after another, and count their 
coups and with help enact their fights with 
the enemy. It was a great day for me when 
I counted my two coups, the taking of the 
horses and the gun, a friend playing the part 
41 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

of the Nez Perce, All the rest of the sum- 
mer I could hear the shouts of the people 
as they applauded that deed. I dreamed 
much of becoming a great warrior. Then, 
in the Falling Leaves moon I happened to 
hear something that turned my thoughts 
forever from war. No doubt the gods in- 
tended that I should be there in Lone Walk- 
er's lodge and hear that talk. 

Said one of the guests to the chief, *' I 
am doing all that I can to make my son 
quit his boyish ways, but he seems not to 
want to do anything but play. I keep tell- 
ing him about vou, and how you began, 
when younger than he is, to mark out the 
trail that has made you head chief of our 
tribe." 

There followed a long silence, and then 
Lone Walker gave a big sigh, and said, 
" There is something far greater than the 
chieftainship of a people. Gladly would I 
this day change places with Little Otter, 
caller of buffalo, bringer of plenty. I may 
be able to direct a tribe, to settle quarrels, 
to lead its warriors, but I cannot feed it. 
Here is winter almost upon us and we need 
a great store of meat for the long moons 
42 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

of snow, and we have not a single caller 
among us. I shall send messengers to the 
Kai'na camp to-morrow to ask Little Otter 
to help us. May I tell him that he shall 
have rich reward for what he does for us?" 

"Ai!" "So tell him!" "Ai! We will 
pay; pay plenty!" the guests cried out, and 
soon afterward the camp crier was told to 
notify the camp that we should move over 
to the buffalo trap on the Two Medicine. 
At the time we were north of it, on Cutbank 
Creek. 

I went home and thought much about 
what I had heard. Of course, I knew about 
the decoying of buffalo, had myself seen 
a number of bands lured within the lines 
of the waiting, hidden people, and then 
stampeded over the cliffs to their death. 
And, boy-like, I had taken it all as a mat- 
ter of course, had given no thought to the 
wonder of it all — to the greatness of the 
deed. And Lone Walker had called Little 
Otter a bringer of plenty. What a beautiful 
name that was. And then I remembered 
how honored and loved had been old Raven 
Chief, our caller, but recently gone to call 
shadow buffalo in Shadow Land. How dif- 

43 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ferent had been his life from that of other 
men ; how peaceful ; how full of mystery, 
and dreams, and nightly doings with the 
gods. And I said to myself, " Why can't I 
become a caller of buffalo — a bringer of 
plenty — provider of food and shelter and 
clothing for the people ? " For the buffalo, 
their meat and hides, were all that, and 
more; the different parts of their great 
bodies supplied almost our every need. 

We moved to the Two Medicine next day, 
and made camp on the edge of the big Cot- 
tonwood grove in the bottom just under the 
cliffs of the buffalo trap. Two days later the 
messengers to the Kai'na camp returned with 
Little Otter, old but still active, a fine, slen- 
der, gray-haired man of quiet manner. He 
had little to say ; his large, beautiful eyes 
seemed always to be seeing things not given 
others to see. Came with him his old wife, a 
medicine woman, and off on the bottom from 
our big, noisy camp they set up their lodge, 
the buffalo medicine lodge, on the skin of 
which was painted, life-size, a buffalo bull and 
cow. That evening, when Lone Walker in- 
vited Little Otter to his lodge, I went over 
and squeezed myself just within the doorway 
44 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

with the women, that I might hear what was 
said. 

The old man soon came, and as he passed 
in through the doorway, Lone Walker cried 
out, ** Welcome, Sun Man, Bringer of Plenty, 
sit you here by my side." And all the other 
guests cried, "Welcome! Welcome to our 
camp, oh, wise one ! " 

He passed to the left of the iire and took 
the seat. He was plainly dressed in cow- 
leather shirt and leggins, plain moccasins, all 
faintly colored with the sacred, dull-red paint 
of the earth. He wore a cow-leather wrap, on 
which was painted his medicine, a buffalo bull 
and cow in black, the hearts and life lines in 
bright red. His hair braids were wrapped at 
the ends with strips of otter fur; a very plain 
man was he beside the chief and his warriors, 
all in bright-colored, quill-embroidered gar- 
ments. 

As soon as he was seated, the women of the 
lodge passed around the little feast of buffalo 
tongue and pemmican, and I noticed that 
before eating, the buffalo caller cut a small 
portion of the tongue, and wdth a few words 
of muttered prayer buried it in the ground in 
front of him. Then, while all ate their por- 

45 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

tions, he gave the news of the Kai'na camp, 
and the chief told him what had happened 
of interest in our camp. 

The feast lasted a long time ; several more 
than the customary three pipes went the 
round of the circle. The talk was mostly 
about great herds of buffalo that Little Otter 
had decoyed to the traps on the rivers of the 
North, and I eagerly listened to it all. I no- 
ticed how very respectful the guests — chiefs, 
medicine men, great warriors, all — were to 
this caller of the buffalo. Yes, they were more 
than respectful. There was in the tone of 
their voices when they addressed him — in 
their eyes when they looked at him — real 
love for the man. Rarely did they call him 
Little Otter. Bringer of Plenty was the name 
they generally gave him. Again and again 
I thought what a beautiful name that was, 
almost a god name. 

Later in the evening I went to sit with No 
Runner. 

"Chief," I said, "Little Otter is a great 
man." 

"That is not half the truth," he answered. 
" That bringer of plenty, he is the greatest 
man in all the three tribes of us." 
±6 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

"Well, I have been thinking, and have 
decided. I am going to be a caller of the 
buffalo, a bringer of plenty," I told him, and 
waited anxiously to hear what he would say. 

'* It is best that you keep to the war trail," 
he told me, after long thought. " You have 
made a good beginning ; you will become 
a great warrior. The callers of the buffalo, 
now, how few are they. Only one, only Little 
Otter this day in the three tribes of us. One 
has to be great medicine, most favored by the 
gods, to become a caller, and you have no 
medicine. Although you tried until your hair 
becomes gray, you probably would never suc- 
ceed in getting one herd to the cliffs." 

"Still, I must try," I said. "Something 
seems to be urging me that way." 

"Go talk with Little Otter about it," he 
told me. And I got up and started for the old 
man's lodge. But as I neared it my steps be- 
came slower and slower. Who was I to dare 
enter that sacred buffalo medicine lodge — 
to question so great a man ? I stopped, turned 
back, went a little way, and turned again. 
" Surely, his kind face tells of a kind heart," 
I said to myself. " I shall anyhow go to the 
doorway and ask if I may enter." 




CHAPTER III 



I APPROACHED the lodge. A good 
fire within lit up its yellow leather cover 
and made plain the black bull and cow 
painted upon it. At the doorway I called 
out: "Little Otter, Bringer of Plenty, are 
you there ?" 

"Ail Ai! Enter! Enter!" he called back, 
and I went inside. 

"Ah! It is you, my son," said he, when 
the firelight lit up my face. " Welcome you 
are. Sit you there. Now, what brings youth 
to an old man's lodge so late at night?" 

"Oh, great man, pity me; help me," I 
cried. "I want to become a caller of the 
buffalo." 

"Ah! So that is it," he exclaimed. "I 
fear that I cannot help you much. You have 
to get help from the ancient ones. Long did 
48 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

I fast and pray, oh, many times, and often 
did I try to draw the herds before I at last 
found a medicine that told me how to do it. 
Have you a medicine?" 

" No, I have not yet had my sacred dream," 
I answered. 

"Then go have it. And after that try to 
call a herd. And keep on fasting and pray- 
ing and sacrificing and calling herds, and 
perhaps you will at last succeed. And then 
you may never be able to do it. And remem- 
ber, it is dangerous work." 

"I am not afraid," I told him. "I have 
twice been to war. I have taken a gun from 
a living enemy." 

"Well, my son, all that I can do for you 
I shall do," he said; "but of course there 
are some things about this calling that my 
medicine forbids me to mention. Best you 
go to the outer end of one of the wings when 
I call a herd, and watch me." 

I went home. Our little lodge was dark, 
and my sister and old Suyaki were asleep. I 
built up a fire from the buried coals and 
awakened them, because I was so excited 
about what I had decided to do that I could 
not wait until morning to tell them about it 
49 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" What is it, brother, are you going to war 
again?" Pitaki asked. 

"No: never again." 

"Then what? Why have you awakened 
us? Are you sick?" old Suyaki cried. 

"No, I am well: I am happy. I just woke 
you up to tell you that I am going to be a 
caller of the buffalo, a bringer of plenty," I 
told them. 

"Oh, brother! You talk uselessly. You 
can never do that," said Pitaki. 

"He can do it! He shall do it! We will 
help him! Oh, sun! Let me live to see this 
son of mine bring a herd tumbling down 
over the cliffs!" old Suyaki cried. 

And then we talked a long time, and it 
was decided that I was to try to get my 
dream as soon as Little Otter should toll a 
herd over the cliffs, and provide plenty of 
meat for us — for the whole camp. 

Some days passed before the watchers gave 
word that several herds of buffalo were in 
sight, and might at any time come grazing 
near the wings of the trap. On the evening 
of the day that they brought the news. Lit- 
tle Otter began his four days of fast and 
prayer, and all the medicine men of the 

SO 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

camp unrolled their sacred pipes and smoked 
to the gods, and begged them to give him 
what he asked. 

No one now dared go near the caller's 
lodge for fear of breaking his medicine. Of 
his four wives, three came over and remained 
with friends in our camp. The fourth, the 
head wife, remained with him and sang with 
him his sacred songs. Twice a day, in the 
morning and the evening, we saw her go to 
the river and drink, for water was not allowed 
in the lodge. She went to and fro with slow 
step and bent head, spoke to no one, and 
none spoke to her. Her face and hands were 
painted black. 

In the evening, sometimes alone and some- 
times with my sister, I would go a little way 
from camp toward the caller's lodge, and sit 
and listen to his songs. They were different 
songs; some that his dream had given him. 
Most of them were very low, very sad; and 
one, his "Song of the Ancient Bull," oh, 
that was a wonderful song. Now low and 
slow, then loud and deep and quick, truly, as 
we listened it almost took our breath. And 
"Oh, it hurts! It makes me feel queer here 
in my bosom," Pitaki would whisper to me. 

51 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

"Because it is such great medicine," I 
would tell her. " True, it hurts, but it is a 
kind of hurt that makes me see things : the 
buffalo, our ancestors, in that far back time 
when men and animals talked to one another. 
Listen, and listen to it carefully, for some day 
you will be singing it with me." 

Came the evening when Little Otter's fast 
ended. Lone Walker gave a feast and smoke 
for him, and word went out to the people 
to be ready at call to hurry to the stone piles 
of the wings. When the feast was over I 
went to Little Otter and asked him to let 
me go with him whenever he went up to the 
edge of the plain, and he said that I could 
do so. 

At daylight the next morning we were up 
there with the four watchers, who had re- 
mained on top all night. We were on the 
edge of the cliffs where the two wings, start- 
ing from them about a hundred steps apart, 
ran one to the northwest and one to the 
northeast, far out across the plain to a wide 
coulee in which were always pools of water. 
These outer ends of the wings were all of 
ten hundred steps apart, and the wings were 
piles of stones about thirty or forty steps 

52 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

apart, except that near the cliffs they were 
only a few steps apart, in order that a great 
many people might there be hidden. The 
cliffs were two. The first, the height of three 
or four men, dropped down to a narrow shelf. 
Below that the second, very much higher, 
dropped straight down to the slope of the 
valley, and there, in a big half-circle out from 
the wall of the cliff, was built the trap, a 
corral of tree-trunks, brush, and rocks, over 
which a buffalo could not climb or jump, 
nor the biggest bull push down. 

We looked out upon the plain and saw 
three herds of buffalo; one some distance 
north of the coulee, and one west and one 
east of the big mouth of the wings. Little 
Otter wet one of his fingers in his mouth, 
and then held it up to learn which side of 
it would first feel cold. " What wind there 
is goes east," he said. " I could not call the 
herd down that way — they would smell me. 
The herd to the west is too small for us to 
bother with. That out to the north is too far 
away, but I think that it will soon be moving 
in to the coulee for water, and from there 
I can call them if the gods be with me. 
You watchers, one of you go tell Lone 

53 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Walker to have the people hurry to the 
rock piles." 

Looking down into the valley, we soon saw 
them coming outTrom the lodges, men, wo- 
men, and children old enough to understand 
things, and do as they were told. As they 
climbed the far end of the cliff, where there 
was a steep path, and came toward us, they 
prayed the gods for success ; prayed that a 
great herd of buffalo might be tolled into the 
trap. As they began to go past us, now one and 
then another of the watchers would call out : 
"Listen. These are the commands of Little 
Otter : You are to go slowly out to the rock 
piles. There you are to lie motionless. No 
matter how much you want to get up and see 
what he is doing — if the herd is coming, you 
are to lie perfectly still until the animals have 
passed you, and then you are to rise up and 
wave your robes and chase them as fast as you 
can run." 

Little Otter himself sat off at the edge of 
the cliff, watching the herds, paying no at- 
tention to the passing people. Lone Walker 
and the chiefs of the different bands of the All 
Friends Society went over and sat down near 
him. 

54 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

After a time he turned to them and asked : 
"You have all your men gathered?" 

"They are out there, more than four hun- 
dred of them, sitting along the trail," Lone 
Walker answered. 

" That number should be plenty," he said. 
" Let them hide by the first twenty rock piles 
of each wing. Beyond those, I think, there 
will be little danger." 

At that the chiefs gave the order, and 
the men of the Siezers, the Braves, Raven 
Carriers, Bulls, All Crazy Dogs, and other 
bands, began to go out to their places, the 
Crazy Dogs, greatest warriors of the tribe, 
taking the place of greatest danger, the piles 
nearest the cliffs. There the buffalo would be 
most likely to rush off suddenly to the east or 
west, and trample everything before them. 

Little Otter, carrying the light, soft tanned 
robe of a yearling cow buffalo, now started out 
to do his work and I followed him. From 
the cliffs out to the coulee of the water holes 
the plain was one little ridge after another. 
From the tops of them we could see the 
three herds of buffalo ; when we were down 
in the hollows between, they were hidden 
from us. We kept close to the west wing of 

S5 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the trap. The stampeders had already taken 
their places, and none of them were to be 
seen unless we walked right upon them. The 
rock piles afforded hiding for only a few ; 
their main purpose was to mark where the 
people should lie in two straight but ever- 
diverging lines. All along between the piles 
the stampeders lay prone on their stomachs, 
under their grass-colored, cow-leather wraps, 
with only their heads in sight ; and every 
wrap and every head was covered with sprigs 
of sage, or handfuls of the dry plains grasses. 
Upon reaching the last rock pile of the 
wing, I lay down and Little Otter sat near me 
for a time. The herd of buffalo down the 
coulee had evidently been to water, as it was 
now feeding and moving slowly off to the 
northeast from the pools. The herd to the 
west was slowly grazing toward us, and still a 
long way off. The herd to the north, the big 
herd, was well scattered out, some of the ani- 
mals grazing, some lying down, a few old 
bulls standing motionless and half asleep in the 
warm sun. All three herds had been too far 
away to notice the people stringing out across 
the plain to their places along the wings. And 
now that they had come in answer to the 

56 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

caller's order, they were obliged to remain 
where they were until the buffalo should be 
decoyed, or the caller give out word that the 
hunt was over for that day. 

The day grew warmer and warmer, but it 
was not until the sun was halfway between 
the edge of the world and the middle of the 
sky that the herd began to show signs of 
thirst. One after another, without grazing, 
a few animals started toward the coulee, 
coming a few steps, then stopping, then 
moving on again for a short distance. Then 
the ones that were lying down got up and 
stretched themselves, and little by little the 
whole herd began to close in and follow the 
leaders, now walking slowly and without 
pause. 

**Now! Now is my time," Little Otter 
told me and, taking his robe, he went down 
into the coulee, ran across it, and started up 
the long slope on the other side. There, also, 
was little ridge after little ridge. He went 
on over a number of them, and then almost 
to the top of one higher than the others and 
stopped, and slowly raised up and looked over 
it. Oh, how closely I watched him then! 
And so did every one along the line of the 
57 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

wings who was in a position to see. Hun- 
dreds and hundreds of eyes were upon him, 
hundreds of voices were praying for his suc- 
cess. 

When Little Otter looked over the ridge, 
the buffalo were not very far from him. He 
wrapped his robe closely about his body, 
hair side out and the head part covering his 
head, and then, stooping over, he ran a lit- 
tle way along the crest of the ridge, showing 
to the animals the upper part of his body. 
At once the leaders, some old cows, stopped, 
and the others came crowding up to them 
and also stopped and stared ahead, trying to 
see what had caused the halt. 

Little Otter had gone back out of sight ; 
but very soon he again showed himself to 
them, this time running along the top of the 
ridge on his hands and feet, and kicking up 
behind, and half-rising on his feet, and whirl- 
ing around on hands and feet; oh, a funny 
sight he was! The buffalo stared and stared 
at him. A couple of the leaders backed up; 
others half-turned, but still stared ; all were 
about to run away, when the caller came 
back over the top of the ridge out of their 
sight, and then raised up and looked at them 

58 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

through the sagebrush and grass growing 
along the crest. It was then, I thought, 
that he was calling them. But what kind of 
a noise was he making? He was too far off 
for it to reach my ears. 

Whatever it was, it was medicine. A lone 
cow pushed out past the leaders, trotted 
toward him a few steps, stopped and listened 
and looked ahead, and then trotted on, oth- 
ers beginning to follow her. And at that the 
caller turned and ran down toward the coulee 
as fast as he could go, robe flapping behind 
him, until he came to a ridge near it. There 
he looked back; the buffalo were not yet 
come to the ridge he had left; he came over 
the one he was on and waited for them. 

Soon the old cow came in sight, then 
others of the lead. They stopped on the high 
ridge, and the caller again pranced around 
in their sight, and then came down off the 
crest and repeated his call, whatever it was. 
And at that the old cow and the others 
started toward him, first at a trot and then 
on the run, and he ran for the coulee, keep- 
ing well bent over, and often jumping side- 
ways from his course. And now the whole 
herd, all of four hundred head, was coming 

59 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

on his trail, and fast gaining upon him. He 
came into the coulee, crossed it, and ran on 
up our slope not far inside the end of the 
wing where I lay, and the herd soon came 
in past me, cows and young bulls in the lead, 
calves and yearlings close with them, and big, 
old bulls in the rear. Only the leaders of the 
herd knew why they were running: they 
wanted to know what that buffalo-like thing 
was that kept fleeing from them. Perhaps 
some old cow thought that it was her missing 
calf — forgetting that the wolves had pulled 
it down. 

As soon as the tail of the herd passed me 
I jumped up and ran after it, shouting and 
waving my robe, and one by one those along- 
side me did the same as came each one his 
turn. And alongside the outer end of the 
other wing the stampeders there were doing 
the same. At first only the rear animals of 
the herd saw us and, frightened, they pushed 
on faster, crowding those ahead. Little Otter, 
meantime, bore more to the west and came 
into the line of the rock piles. As soon as 
he did that the people there, and from there 
out, all sprang up, shouting and waving robes, 
and the leader of the herd, the big old cow, 
60 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

turned and swung it off toward the east, only 
to find that the people along the outer end 
of the other wing blocked her way. To the 
south was the only open course, and that 
she took. 

In chasing Little Otter, the buffalo had 
been running easily. But now, as more and 
more people kept rising on either side, and 
closing in behind them, they became mad 
with fright ; they ran now jor their lives. The 
rattle and thudding of their hoofs was like 
thunder. They spurned the dry plains' soil 
into fine gray dust that rose like a cloud be- 
hind them. Through the haze of it we in 
the rear could see them rushing on and on, 
the stampeders rising and rising, and waving 
robes and shouting on either side, and we 
followed as fast as we could, praying that all 
would end well. On the way in I overtook 
Little Otter, walking, and still breathing fast 
from his long run, and I dropped into a walk 
beside him. I spoke and he did not answer: 
his eyes were on the herd and its stampeders, 
and he was praying. And then a rising wind 
carried away the dust cloud and we saw the 
edge of the cliff, and a crowd of people there, 
and a few old bulls running off to the east 
6i 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

and west. The herd had gone down over it, 
bull and cow, and yearling and calf, they 
had gone tumbling and whirling and bump- 
ing and sliding down over one wall, and then 
the other, to their death. 

"The gods are good. My medicine re- 
mains with me," Little Otter cried. " I have 
filled the trap with meat." 

We broke into a run, and soon came to 
the edge of the cliff and looked down. The 
big trap was filled with dead and dying buf- 
falo, and some, unhurt for all their fall from 
the high cliffs, were rushing here and there 
against the walls of the trap, and men were 
shooting them down with their bows and 
arrows. Old, old men and women were sit- 
ting on the fence, singing and talking and 
laughing and pointing to this one and that 
one of the big animals. Children were cry- 
ing for their mothers ; dogs were howling, 
and down the trail at the east end of the 
cliffs the last of the stampeders were hurry- 
ing to have a hand in the butchering. 

" Best you go with them and get your 

share," Little Otter told me. " Myself, I shall 

sit here. I love to watch the people at work 

in the trap because they are then so happy." 

62 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

"And it is you who make the happiness," 
I told him, " and that is best of all. My mind 
is made up : I, too, am going to be a bringer 
of plenty." 

When I got down to the trap I found my 
sister and old Suyaki, with No Runner's 
woman, butchering a big, fat cow which he 
had given them for their share, and I helped 
them carry the meat to our lodge. Then we 
feasted upon some of it, and they cut the 
rest into thin sheets for drying. The camp 
was red with meat that night ; it was every- 
where hung on scaifolds and on lines, and 
by the firelight in the lodges women were 
preparing the hides of the kill for drying. 
One could hear everywhere the thud thud of 
the fleshers. And this was but the beginning 
of the take of winter meat ; Little Otter had 
promised to call more herds, to provide every 
lodge with plenty of food and hides. 

Late in the evening I went again to his 
lodge and was made welcome, but I was a 
long time finding courage to ask what I was 
so anxious to know. At last I stammered: 
" Little Otter, what did you besides what I 
saw you do this morning? Did you make 
some kind of a cry to the buffalo ?" 

63 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

He laughed a little, and then answered 
very kindly, " My son, I did make a cry, 
but I cannot tell you what it was: that is a 
part of the medicine my dream gave me, and 
I dare not even hint what it is. If you would 
be a caller, go take your first fast, and if that 
fails you, keep on fasting and praying until 
some of the ancient ones give you help." 

" It must be that he gave the cry of a 
buffalo calf in distress," I thought as I went 
home, and I made up my mind to try it on 
the first herd I should try to call. 

I began my fast the very next evening, 
choosing for my hiding-place some cliffs 
away up the river from camp. There I found 
a dry place under an overhanging shelf. Be- 
low me a lone, dead pine, its top on a level 
with my bed, leaned out from the rock wall, 
and right under it the deep water swirled. It 
was a good place. At night, after the wind 
ceased blowing, I could hear strange noises 
and splashings down in the river, the Under- 
Water People at play, I hoped, and to them 
I prayed for help as well as to the other gods. 
And at sunset of the second day a big, white- 
headed eagle perched on the top of the dead 
pine for his night's rest, and I prayed long 
64 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

to him, but silently lest he should become 
frightened and fly away. With him so near, 
I hoped that the shadows of his ancestors 
might also be there, and I begged them for 
help. And then I slept, and my shadow wan- 
dered far — and got no help of any kind. 

But on the fifth night there I had a good 
dream. Yes, I can tell it now and no harm 
done, because I afterward got other medi- 
cine. In this dream my shadow met Ancient 
Fisher, and he promised to help me in every 
way. When I awoke in the morning I was 
glad. I got up and left the cliff, and went 
down to the river and drank for the first time 
in five nights and four days. And then I went 
home, very slowly, for I was weak from my 
long fast. I neared camp just in time to see 
a herd of buffalo — a living river of buf- 
falo, come pouring over the cliffs into the 
trap. Down they crashed, and rolled, and slid, 
clouds of dust rising from their thick-haired 
bodies. And they keptcoming until I thought 
that there would be no end to the stream. 
It was a wonderful sight, a sight never to be 
forgotten. And the man who had caused it, 
what medicine, what power was his! In the 
cold days of winter when no hunting could 

65 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

be done, the women would bring out the meat 
they were drying and storing now, and they 
would say: **This meat is because of Little 
Otter, bringer of plenty. It is meat from the 
buffalo trap." Not a man, woman, or child 
in all the camp but would think kindly of 
the caller, and speak kind words of him. 

I did not go over to the trap. I went to 
our lodge and lay down, and some one who 
saw me passing told my sister that I had re- 
turned. She came running from the trap, 
and the first thing she asked was if I was 
hungry. And then, without waiting for my 
answer, she got out a dish of berry pem- 
mican, and sat down by my side and insisted 
upon feeding me little lumps of it. Then 
old Suyaki came in. 

"They have given us two cows," she 
cried, " but before going to work on them 
I just had to come and see you. Are you 
well ? Did you have a good dream ? " 

"Yes, a good dream. I think that I have 
strong medicine. And, of course, I am well," 
I answered. 

"Well, I had a dream while you were 
gone," she said, " I wandered far out across 
the plains, and up a river valley, and then 
66 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

climbed to the top of a point and sat down. 
And far off I saw dust rising. I looked 
closer and saw that it was caused by a herd 
of buffalo running toward cliffs. Two ravens 
were in a tree near me, and said one to the 
other: * Come, let 's go. That young Apauk 
is calling a herd of buffalo to the cliffs. 
There will be meat aplenty for us.' And as 
they flew away I saw the stampeders rising 
up behind the herd; saw it go tumbling 
over the cliffs. And then my shadow came 
back into my body and I woke up. My son, 
that was surely a good sign. I know that 
you are going to be a great caller of buf- 
falo." 

"I feel that way, too," I told her. "As 
soon as you and sister have dried what meat 
you have, we will go away off by ourselves, 
and I will try to call a herd." 

They went back to the trap, and I lay on 
my couch and made plans. 

One thing troubled me: I had no balls 
for my Nez Perce gun, nor could I get 
any. The balls the Red Coat traders of the 
North sold were too large for it. I did not 
like to go away without a good gun and 
plenty of powder and ball. Suddenly the 
67 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

thought came to me to ask Rising Wolf, the 
white boy who lived with Lone Walker, to 
make some balls for me. He had been with 
us a year, and could speak our language 
quite well. I went to him that evening and 
told him my trouble. He took his ball pouch 
and came to my lodge with me, and tried 
one of his balls in my gun. It was just the 
right size. There were twenty balls in his 
pouch, and he gave me ten of them! That 
was the beginning of the great friendship 
between us. More than sixty winters of true 
friendship have been ours. In all that time 
not one cross word from one to the other. 
I am proud of that. 

Well, during the time that the meat was 
drying I had many talks with No Runner. 
He was interested in what I wanted to do, 
and gave me good advice. It was decided 
that he should help me move camp, and 
then bring back my horses and herd them 
with his own band until I should want them. 
The evening before we were to start I made 
a last short visit in Little Otter's lodge, and 
told him that I was starting out in the morn- 
ing to camp by myself and try to call buf- 
falo. Said he: " My son, you are too young 
68 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

to begin that work. I fear that you will 
only be disappointed. Wait a while before 
you attempt it ; there is plenty of time. 
Just grow, and pray, and think medicine 
thoughts. Fast much, and dream dreams. 
Then try the calling, and you will be more 
likely to succeed." 

I told him that I could not wait ; that I 
had to go, and I went back to my lodge with 
slow steps. I had been thinking that I would 
have no trouble in learning to call — and the 
old man had put doubt into my heart. 

The place I chose for our lone camp was 
the mouth of Birch Creek, a short day's 
ride from the Two Medicine buffalo trap, 
but so far from the big camp that the game 
down there would not be disturbed by riders 
and hunters from it. Thither we went, all 
the way following the windings of the river, 
instead of taking the shorter trail across the 
plains, in order that we might not alarm the 
herds. It was almost dark when we set up 
the lodge in the grove of cottonwoods just 
below where the two rivers meet. Very 
early the next morning No Runner started 
back with our horses. As soon as he had 
gone, I called my sister and Suyaki and we 

69 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

started up the north slope of the valley, 
there very steep and at the last, rocky. When 
we came to the top I slowly raised up and 
looked out over it. Pitaki was at my shoul- 
der. 

" Oh, brother ! Just look at them ! " she 
cried. " Surely your medicine guided them 
there for your purpose." 

I thought that she might be right. Out 
on top of a rise of the plain, close in front 
of us, was a herd of about a hundred buffalo, 
and they were grazing out over it, just as I 
would have them do. I quickly decided that 
as soon as they moved out of sight over the 
crest of the ridge I should run toward them 
and try to call them back. 




CHAPTER IV 



THE herd was a long time moving 
over the top of the ridge. On the 
very crest of it a big old bull stopped, 
and turned facing us, and looked this way 
and that way, all the time switching his 
short tail, as though suspicious of something. 
We knew that he had not seen us, could not 
see us, as only the tops of our heads were 
above the rocks, themselves as black as our 
tiair. I believe that there are shadows, shapes 
that we cannot see, that often give the 
hunted warning of the presence of the hunter. 
Have we not, all of us, now and then, when 
approaching game that we knew did not see 

71 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

or smell us, been surprised to see it sud- 
denly start running and go clean out of the 
country ! Of course, it had warning of some 
kind. 

But this old bull, if he had been warned, 
only half-understood ; after a time he made 
up his mind that all was as it should be, and 
went on over the rise to rejoin his herd. 

"Well, he is gone," said old Suyaki ; 
"now is your time. Oh, my son ! I am so 
anxious for you to do this that I am sick. I 
tremble all over me. Go ! Hurry ! Let us 
see what you can do." 

" Yes ; go now. Brother, I pray for you," 
Pitaki told me. 

I set my rifle up against a rock, wrapped 
my robe about me, hair side out, and started. 
I was so excited, so anxious about what I 
was to do, that I could hardly breathe. I told 
myself that I must be calm, but as I neared 
the top of the ridge over which the buffalo 
had passed, my legs began to tremble ; I 
was more excited than I had ever been in 
all my life. I could not understand it. When 
raiding the camp of the enemy, when tak- 
ing the gun from the Nez Perce, I had not 
felt that way. I sat down and scolded my- 
72 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

self. And then I prayed to my medicine, 
and felt better. I got up and went on. 

When well up the ridge I got on hands 
and knees and crawled the rest of the way, 
and through the low sagebrush and grease- 
wood looked down the far slope. The buf- 
falo had left it, and were grazing up the 
slope of the next rise. I thought that they 
were just about the right distance off for my 
purpose. Raising my robe so that it would 
cover my head, I got up and, well stooped 
over, began to run along the crest of the 
ridge, every few steps going out of their sight 
on the slope away from them. They noticed 
me as soon as I began to run, and threw up 
their heads and stared. After running in and 
out of their sight a few times, I got on my 
hands and knees, and kicked up and made 
the noise of a calf. And as I did so I knew 
that it was not the noise that Little Otter 
had made. A buffalo calf cannot bawl loudly, 
like a calf of the white horns that you white 
men have brought into our country. It can 
only grunt: ^^ ?n—m—m—??i ! ?n—??i—f?i—m!'' like 
that. And so low that it cannot be heard a 
hundred steps away. So I stopped grunting 
like one, and made two or three more kicks 

73 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

as I again went out of sight of the herd. 
Then I whirled back and looked over the 
top of the ridge, and my heart went dead : 
the buffalo were running away from me, 
running up wind to the west as fast as they 
could go. And with them went my hope 
of becoming a caller ; a bringer of plenty for 
the people. I felt so badly about my failure 
that I suddenly became sick. I made a pil- 
low of my robe and lay down, turning my 
back to the sky. 

After a long time I heard the swish of 
steps in the grass, but I knew who was com- 
ing and did not move. Pitaki it was, of 
course, and our almost-mother. They sat 
down on either side of me, and my sister said : 
" Brother, they ran away. Oh, I am so sorry ! " 

" So am I. Well, it is ended. I can never 
be a caller," I told her. " Why, they never 
even came a step toward me. They just 
stared a little, and then raised their tails and 
ran." 

" Well, and what if they did ? " cheerful- 
hearted old Suyaki cried. ** Come, now. 
Did you really expect to decoy a herd the 
very first time ? What did Little Otter tell 
you ? That one had to try many, many times, 

74 



Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 

and pray much, and fast, and dream, before 
he could become a caller." 

"That is true," I cried, and sprang up. 
" I was so disappointed that I did not think 
of his words. I will try again. I will try a 
hundred times. I will try ten hundred times. 
I will be a caller of buffalo." 

" There ! That is the way I like to hear 
you talk. That is the way chiefs talk. Of 
course you will try again. And again and 
again until you do it. And we will help you 
all we can. Look across there to the south. 
Just see the herds for you to practice upon," 
said Suyaki. 

Yes. There were seven or eight herds of 
buffalo in sight. Several on the point of a 
plain between the river and the creek, and 
the rest out south from the river. But I did 
not feel like trying another herd that morn- 
ing. I wanted to think, to make medicine. 
And so we went back to the lodge, my sis- 
ter and I. Suyaki remained up on the edge 
of the plain to watch the country. Camped 
off by ourselves as we were, we were risking 
our lives. A war party might come our way 
at any time ; we had to see them first, and 
then keep out of their way. 

75 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

But somehow, after we were in the lodge, 
I couldn't think what to do. I was very 
restless. "Come on, let's wander around," 
I told Pitaki, and I took my gun and we 
crossed the river and went up the valley of 
Birch Creek. Not far above the mouth of 
the stream we found in the gray cliffs on the 
west side of the valley some thick streaks 
of the black rock with which, to-day, you 
white people heat iron so hot that you can 
bend it and hammer it into any shape you 
want. We did not then know that it was of 
any value. Pitaki thought that when Old 
Man made the world he had put the black 
streaks there as a mark of mourning for some 
dead friend. 

Well, where these streaks show so plainly 
in the cliff, we climbed to the top of it. But 
there the top of the cliff is not the edge of 
the level plain : from it a steep hill slopes 
up to the west. As there were no buffalo on 
the slope, we moved back a little way and 
came upon a circle of stones all of fifteen 
steps across, and in the center was a small 
circle of fireplace stones. There, in the long 
ago, some of our ancestors had camped. Just 
as we do to-day, they had weighted the edge 

76 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

of their lodge with stones when setting it 
up in a place exposed to wind. But what 
a large lodge theirs must have been ! Three 
times as large as our very biggest, twenty- 
one skin lodges. How could they have 
packed it without horses? Their dogs could 
not have dragged the skin on their little 
travois, nor pulled one of the big lodge poles. 
Maybe those first Blackfeet were giants, and 
their dogs, too. Why not ? Here and there 
we find bones of the ancient animals that 
prove they must have been as large as a 
white man's house. Indeed, there has come 
down to us the story of one of them, a buf- 
falo bull so large that there was nowhere in 
the Missouri River water deep enough to 
cover his back. 

"Sister," I said, "I am going to pray to 
the shadows of the ancient ones who camped 
here. They were wise. Maybe some of them 
are right here and listening to us; maybe I 
can get help from them." 

"Oh, brother! Maybe some of them are 
here," she whispered. "I am afraid of them. 
But go ahead. Pray. Whatever happens, I 
will be with you." 

She was a brave girl, my sister Pitaki. 

77 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Well, I prayed a long time to those an- 
cient ones for help, asking them to give me 
a revealing dream; to tell me how to call 
the buffalo. I had no sooner finished than 
one of the herds we had seen up on the plain 
between the two streams came in sight on 
the edge of the slope above us. Close to us 
a deep coulee ran up almost to them, afford- 
ing good shelter. Here was too good a chance 
to be lost; I felt that I must try to call them. 
Leaving my rifle with Pitaki, I crawled from 
the circle of stones into the coulee, and then 
started up it. 

Stopping now and then, and climbing the 
bank of the coulee and looking out, I soon 
saw that I could go right to the buffalo. 
There were about fifty of them, and all but 
the young calves were hungrily cropping the 
short, thickly growing grass of the slope. As 
I went on, the thought came to me to try 
the calf call upon them; I could go close 
enough for them to hear it. 

Up and up I went until, cautiously look- 
ing out from the coulee, I could see the 
eyes of the nearest animals. That was close 
enough. I carefully hoisted my robe about 
me, and on hands and knees jumped out on 
78 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the slope before them, kicking backward 
and upward at every jump. But I made only 
four jumps; at my fourth they all bunched 
up and wheeled and ran up over the edge of 
the plain and out of sight. I had not time to 
try the calf call before they were turned and 
gone. I thought that I should, perhaps, have 
begun calling before showing myself. Any- 
how, I had failed again. I felt pretty badly 
as I rejoined my sister and we went home. 

We found Suyaki in the lodge when we 
entered. She had watched all day and seen 
nothing moving except the feeding game. 
I told her about my second failure and she 
told me to take courage. " Be happy-hearted," 
she said. " Be glad that you have me and your 
sister, and your many friends in the big camp. 
Be glad that you have been to war and made 
a name for yourself. And now night comes 
on. We will eat some of the dry meat that 
Little Otter decoyed to the cliffs for us, and 
maybe that will be good luck. And then, 
after a little, we will all go to sleep and maybe 
you will have a good dream." 

I had no dream of any kind. I awoke at 
daylight and went upon the edge of the plain. 
Buffalo were everywhere, even another herd 

79 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

in the very place of my first attempt at call- 
ing. I sat there and watched them, and tried 
to think of some way to call them, and could 
find no way. Over and over I pictured every- 
thing that I had seen Little Otter do. I had 
done the same, and the buffalo had fled from 
me. "I made the wrong kind of a call," I 
said to myself. And then: "But the second 
time you made no call, and they ran away 
just the same." 

I went back down to the lodge. Suyaki 
gave me food, but I was not hungry. I was 
sick from thinking so hard, and so uselessly. 

"Suyaki," I said, "here is another day, 
and the buffalo are all around us. But what 
can I do? I had no dream, and I can think 
of no new way to try to call." 

"Then try again the way you did yester- 
day," she quickly answered. 

" Well, I will ; what you say shall be done," 
I told her, "but I know that the buffalo will 
run from me." 

We all went up to the edge of the plain 
and looked out over the rocks. The buffalo 
were midway between us and the top of the 
ridge, and most of them were lying down. 
It was useless to try to approach them where 
80 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

they were, so we sat down to wait for them 
to go back over the ridge. It was a long wait. 
They never moved until past the middle of 
the day, and then they got up and began 
feeding toward us, evidently intending to go 
down to the river to drink. As soon as I was 
sure that that was their intention, I said that 
I would wait until they came so close that I 
could see their eyes, and then try to call them. 
And just then Pitaki gave a little cry and 
grasped my arm, and pointed across the 
river. 

I turned and saw some riders, fifteen of 
them, driving a band of loose horses along 
the trail that comes down the steep point be- 
tween the two streams. They were a war 
party, of course, and there could be no doubt 
but they had raided the camp of our people. 

" Oh, my son ! " old Suyaki wailed, " maybe 
they have our horses." 

" If they have n't, they will take everything 
in our lodge that they want, for it is right 
in their path," I answered. 

Down the steep, rough trail they came at 

utmost speed, doing their best to outride the 

pursuers who were surely trying to overtake 

them. The herd of buffalo just back of us 

8i 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

saw them, thought that they were some of 
their own kind fleeing from danger, and 
made a rush to join them. There was but one 
thing for us to do, and that was to get out 
of their way. 

"Come! Run with me down to the tim- 
ber," I cried. 

"But the war party. They will see us," 
Suyaki objected. 

For answer I seized her arm and started 
down the slope, following my sister, who was 
making such long leaps that she seemed to 
be more a big, strange bird than a girl. Suyaki 
could not keep up with me. I grasped her 
by the waist with my right arm, she was 
small and light, and carried her. As I neared 
the bottom of the slope and the timber, I 
heard the thunder of the buffalo coming 
down over the edge of the plain, and then 
the stones and boulders that they disloged be- 
gan rollingand bounding downahead of them, 
and past us. There was no time to turn and 
watch, and dodge them; I kept going; a few 
more jumps and we should be safe behind 
one of the big cottonwoods growing at the 
foot of the slope. Pitaki was already behind 
one and looking out from one side of the 
82 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

trunk at me and crying, "Hurry! Hurry!" 
And then, just as I reached the level ground 
a big, flying stone hit my left shoulder and 
I pitched forward, head first against a tree, 
and knew no more. 

They told me afterward that I was dead 
for a long time, but I do not believe it was 
so very long. When I opened my eyes, Pi- 
taki was sitting at my side with my rifle, full 
cocked, in her hands, and all wasquiet. There 
was great pain in my shoulder; I felt as if 
fire was eating it. I saw Suyaki coming 
through the brush. She gave a little cry 
when she saw that my eyes were open, and 
ran and gave me a hug that made me yell 
with more pain: "My shoulder!" I cried. 
"It must be broken." 

And so it was. Suyaki said that we would 
go to the lodge and she would bandage it and 
my arm. But first I had to know about the 
war party. 

" They never came here," she said. " When 
they got down into the bottom they turned 
and went up Birch Creek as fast as they could 
go with their stealings. Of course, they saw 
us, and no doubt thought that w^e were the 
watchers for a big camp hidden here in the 

83 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

grove. The buffalo? They came down just 
above us and dashed across the river, and got 
the wind of the war party and ran off down 
the valley." 

We went to the lodge, and after I was 
bandaged I lay down ; the pain was making me 
dizzy. Suyaki went out to the edge of the 
timber to watch for our people; some of 
them were sure to be coming on the trail of 
the raiders. It was late in the afternoon when 
they came down the point and saw her wav- 
ing her robe, and came to us. There were 
about forty of them. They had ridden fast 
after finding the trail of the war party, As- 
siniboines, they thought, and their horses 
were already tired. When we told them how 
far behind the party they were, they decided 
that they could not overtake it: they would 
turn back home, they said, and outfit for a 
raid against the Assiniboines. I asked if they 
would help us move back, and they all offered 
to walk, and lend us their horses for packing 
and riding. A couple of them went out and 
killed a buffalo and brought in the meat, and 
they camped beside us for the night. I lay 
out before their evening fire for a long time, 
listening to the planning of the raid, and 
84 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

watching them go through the Parted Hair 
dance. Of course, I had to tell about my at- 
tempts to call the buffalo, and how I had got 
hurt. A few of them laughed and said that 
I might as well give up all thought of doing 
that. My broken shoulder, they said, was a 
sign, a warning to me that I would never be- 
come a caller of buffalo. 

"Laugh if you will," I answered, "the day 
is surely coming when you shall all eat meat 
that I have decoyed to the cliffs." 

We packed up and got an early start the 
next morning, those who had lent us horses 
riding double with one and another of the 
party. I rode most of the way in one of Su- 
yaki's travois, and by the time we got into the 
big camp I was in more pain than ever. Some 
of Suyaki's friends helped her set up the 
lodge. Pitaki and some of her playmates 
brought wood and water. And as soon as we 
had a fire going and the couches laid, my 
friends began to come in and visit with me, 
and say kind words. I had not known before 
that so many, young and old, were my friends. 
It was worth being hurt and sick to find it 
out. 

Late in the evening came in my best friend 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

of all, No Runner. He said he was just from 
a smoke and council in Lone Walker's lodge, 
where Little Otter had promised to decoy 
one more herd of buffalo to the cliffs. I told 
him all that I had done, after he had left us 
at the mouth of Birch Creek ; how, both 
times, I had failed to call the buffalo, and 
we tried to find the reason for it. We finally 
agreed that my actions had been right, but 
that the certain kind of cry that would start 
them toward me was what I lacked. What 
that call or cry was, we could not imagine. 

" Here is what we will do," said my friend 
as he made ready to go home. " As soon as 
you feel able to walk around we will go to 
Little Otter and try to get him to tell us just 
what he does to make the buffalo rush so 
madly after him." 

" I will go with you if I have to crawl to 
his lodge," I answered. And after he had 
gone I lay awake a long time, wondering if 
Little Otter would tell us his secret. 

On the following morning the war party 
started for the Assiniboine camp to recover, 
if possible, the horses that they had taken 
from our people, and make them pay in scalps 
and plunder for what they had done to us. 
86 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Neither No Runner nor I had lost horses by 
their raid. I may as well say here that our 
party had a big fight with the Assiniboines 
at the edge of their camp, and lost three men. 
But they got away with more than a hundred 
horses, twice as many as had been taken from 
us, and brought home with them seven scalps. 
I have good reason to remember all this : one 
of the three who never returned to us was my 
good friend, Ancient Badger, the leader of 
the party. He died trying to save one of his 
wounded men from the enemy. 

It was in the evening of this day that No 
Runner sent his woman to ask Little Otter 
if we could visit him. He answered that he 
would be glad to have us do so, and we went 
at once to his lodge. He told his woman to 
make a little feast for us, and while we were 
eating had me tell him about my attempts to 
call the buffalo, and how I had been hurt. 
He listened closely, often shook his head, as 
much as to say: *'That was wrong. That was 
not the thing to do." But he made no spoken 
comment on my actions. I finished, and then 
No Runner said to him : — 

"Little Otter, Bringer of Plenty, Chief, 
we have come to you to-night for a favor. It 

87 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

is that you will explain to my young friend 
here, my almost-son, how you without fail 
decoy the buffalo to the cliffs. 

" Let me say this to you, Bringer of Plenty : 
Our own caller is dead. He departed for the 
Sand Hills without giving to any of us the 
secret of his success. In your own tribe you 
are the only caller. Our brothers, the North 
Blackfieet, have at this time no caller. In all 
the three tribes of us, you are the only one 
who can bring meat to the traps; on you, 
more than upon us hunters, the widows and 
orphans depend for their winter store of food. 
What if something should happen to you.? 
We should then be without any caller ; a great 
misfortune. Myself, I think that we should 
always have two or three callers ; yes, two or 
three in each tribe. But, anyhow, I wish that 
you would tell my almost-son here how to 
call. Chief, we will give you rich presents 
if you will only do this for us." 

We got no answer from the old man for a 
long time. He sat looking into the fire and 
twirling a long pipestem with thumbs and 
forefingers until I almost cried out to him to 
speak and give us an answer one way or an- 
other. At last he looked up and said : — 
88 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

"There is truth in what you say. There 
should be a caller other than myself, yes, even 
one or two for each tribe of us. In my young 
days there were always callers a-plenty. Why ? 
Because then the men thought more of sacred 
things than they did of warring against our 
enemies. They prayed much, fasted much, 
and were close to the gods. And the gods re- 
warded them : they were given the power to 
call the buffalo, and to do many things far 
more wonderful than that. 

" Now, as to your almost-son here, I would 
like to tell him just what I do to make the 
buffalo come to me, but if I should do so I 
would probably lose my own power. I may 
not speak of what has passed between my 
shadow and the medicine ancient ones it has 
met. I will do this, however : your almost- 
son has eyes; he has ears; the next time I 
go out to call a herd he shall go with me so 
close to it that he can see and hear all that I 
do. This on condition that he keeps to him- 
self all that he learns." 

" Oh, I promise that ! " I cried. 

"And you shall lose nothing by what you 
do for him," said No Runner. 

The old man knocked the pipe bowl on 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

his couch rail. " It is burned out ! " he told 
us, and we went out of the lodge and home- 
ward across the flat, I so pleased and excited 
that my pains were forgotten. 

Most anxiously, now, I listened to the daily 
reports of the watchers up on the edge of the 
plain. Day after day they told of herds of 
buffalo away north, and east, and west of the 
trap wings, and not even a lone old bull came 
near. Many days passed. Something was 
wrong. The medicine men got out their 
pipes and prayed that a herd might come 
grazing toward the wings. All the people 
prayed and made sacrifices to the gods, beg- 
ging them to turn a herd our way. I think 
that my sister and old Suyaki and I prayed 
more, and made more sacrifices than any of 
the others ; we stripped ourselves of all our 
finery. 

At last, one morning, the watchers brought 
word that a herd was grazing toward the wings 
from the north. At midday they reported it 
still coming. At sundown the news they 
brought excited the whole camp : there was 
a big, white buffalo in the herd. None of the 
medicine men, few of the people slept that 
night. All kept praying and praying that we 

90 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

might have that white robe for a sacrifice to 
the sun. 

In no other lodge, I am sure, was such 
excitement as in ours. We prayed, we sang 
medicine songs, and every Httle while my 
sister would cry out: "Oh, brother! To- 
morrow ! To-morrow you are to learn to call 
the buffalo ! " 

When the night was far gone, they made 
me lie down, saying that I must sleep in or- 
der to have strength for what I was to do. I 
did sleep for a short time, but long before day- 
light I had Suyaki cook the morning meal, 
and then impatiently waited to hear the camp 
crier's call for the people to go to the wings. 




CHAPTER V 

THERE was the chance, of course, 
that the herd would not be in a po- 
sition whence they could be decoyed 
within the wings. All night I had worried 
about that, and now, as the first gray light 
of morning came, I worried all the more. 
I had Pitaki tie my robe around my neck, 
and belt it around my waist, hair side out, 
for I could not yet use my left arm and hand. 
When she had done this, I went outside and 
sat waiting for the light to grow, and for 
news from the plain. Early as it was, every 
lodge fire in the camp was going, and the 
92 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

hum of voices, like the buzzing of a swarm 
of big bees, told that the people were all 
up and waiting, and hoping that the camp 
crier's news of the herd would call for them 
to hurry to the rock piles. 

After a time I saw one of the watchers 
come down the cliff trail and run to Little 
Otter's lodge, and enter it. He soon came 
out, followed by the old man, and they hur- 
ried off across the bottom toward the cliffs. 
I wondered if I had been forgotten, and was 
about to follow them when I saw the caller's 
old wife leave the lodge and come running 
across the flat right toward me. All out of 
breath she came and gasped : "A message for 
you, youth. My man says that he dare not 
take you with him to-day because of the sa- 
cred white animal in the herd. That we must 
have. To take any chance of losing it would 
be foolish ; and if you were to go with him 
you might do something to turn off the herd 
from the wings." 

She did not wait for my answer, and hur- 
ried off toward Lone Walker's lodge, where 
he and the other chiefs awaited word from 
the caller. And I had no answer to make. 
I was so taken aback by her words, so ter- 

93 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ribly disappointed, that I could not have said 
anything had there been anything to say. My 
sister and Suyaki came hurrying out to me: 
"Oh, brother," cried the one, ** we heard. 
We are so sorry for you." 

"Never mind. Take courage!" Suyaki 
told me. " You can go with Little Otter an- 
other time. And, anyhow, you will go with 
us to-day and get behind a rock pile and 
watch the caller and perhaps learn some- 
thing." 

Just as she said that the camp crier began 
shouting to the people to hurry to their places 
along the wings, and I arose and with my 
two joined them. Suyaki had, indeed, spoken 
wisely ; by going out to the far end of a wing 
and watching the caller, I might learn the 
secret of his success. 

At the foot of the cliff trail my friend 
Rising Wolf, the white youth, joined us. He 
was surprised to see me there. " I heard that 
Little Otter was to take you out with him 
this morning," he said. 

"Because of the sacred white one I am 
not to be with him," I answered. " He thinks 
that I might do something to prevent him 
decoying it to the trap." 

94 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

And then I noticed that he carried his far- 
seeing instrument. " Go with me to the far 
end of a wing and let me use that medicine 
eye you have," I said; and he answered that 
he would do so. 

Upon topping the cliff, we could see the 
herd, a very large one, well out on the plain 
beyond the wings and the coulee of water 
holes. It was widely scattered and was feed- 
ing northward, as though it had been to water 
some time before daylight. Some distance to 
the west of the wings, and walking steadily 
toward the coulee from the north, was another 
and even larger herd. 

" Little Otter says that you are to take 
your usual places along the wings," the watch- 
ers kept telling the people as they arrived at 
the top of the cliff, and they passed slowly 
and steadily on. The caller was sitting off 
by himself at the edge of the cliff, staring 
at the buffalo and paying no attention to us. 
I knew that he was praying his medicine 
to give him success this day; to help him 
bring the herd with the sacred white one 
straight to the cliffs and the big trap under it. 

Buffalo have a very different nature from 
that of the antelope, or the bighorn, and 

9S 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

other carriers of horns. They are not always 
on the watch for enemies, and fear none but 
man. I think that when a band of wolves 
surrounds a lone old bull and cuts his ham- 
strings and pulls him down, he falls, sur- 
prised that such small animals have got the 
best of his huge body. A thousand times 
they had passed close to him, and sat and 
watched him graze, and he had thought 
them incapable of harming him. 

Nor have the buffalo very good eyes. 
They seem never to see the hunter, if he 
moves slowly, until he is close to them. 
But they do have good noses; they can scent 
man much farther than they can see him. 

On this morning we were in plain sight 
of the two herds as we all went slowly out 
to our places along the wings. We four went 
along the line of the east wing, and lay down 
by its last rock pile. Then Rising Wolf took 
his far-seeing instrument from its case, pulled 
its joints out to the right length and looked 
through it at the herd. " I see the white 
one; it is grazing in about the middle of the 
herd ; it is a big cow," he said, and handed 
the instrument to me. 

I had but the one hand with which to 
96 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

use it, and so I rested the big end upon the 
rock pile and held the little end to my eye. 
I had never before looked through one; and 
looking now could see nothing, and said so. 

"But, of course, you can't; it is pointed 
toward the sky," said Rising Wolf, and 
laughed. *' Sight along the top of it. Sight 
it at the buffalo as you would your rifle, and 
then look through it," he told me. 

I did so, and lo ! there was the white cow, 
and others, apparently so close to me that I 
had but to put out my hand to touch them. 
"Oh! Oh! What medicine, what sun power 
the white men have!" I cried. "I can see 
the eyes of the white cow, and it so far 
away." 

Then Pitaki had to be shown how, and 
look through the instrument, and as I had 
done she cried out in wonder at its power. 
But old Suyaki would not even touch it. "I 
may be foolish, but I fear this medicine eye 
of the white men ; it might make me blind," 
she told us. 

As I again took the instrument. Little 
Otter passed us and went down into the 
coulee and up the farther slope. As I have 
before explained, this slope was broken by 

97 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

little ridges of different height. When the 
caller neared the top of one of them, he 
slowed up and looked cautiously over it be- 
fore going on to the next one. I kept the 
far-seeing instrument on him and watched 
his every movement. He went out farther 
from us than he did the time I had first 
watched him, because now the buffalo were 
farther out. At last he looked over a ridge 
from which, to me, the herd seemed still to 
be too far off to be called, and there he 
grasped his robe by the edge of one side and 
swung it up, fully extended, three or four 
times above the top of the ridge and in full 
sight of at least half of the buffalo of the herd. 

Having waved the robe, I saw him step 
back quickly from the top of the ridge and 
make some kind of a noise three or four 
times. I could not hear him, but knew that 
he was doing so by his actions ; by the 
straightening and sudden bending forward 
of his head and chest ; and oh, how I tried 
to catch the sound of it. 

Again he went higher and . waved the 
robe; and backed down and called; and 
stepped up and waved again ; and watching 
him, I had forgotten those he called. I now 

98 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

turned the instrument upon them: they had 
all ceased grazing and turned round, most of 
them standing still and staring straight ahead, 
a few on the near edge of the herd begin- 
ning to advance, a few steps at a time. I 
looked at the caller : he was again waving 
the robe. I turned the instrument back at 
the herd. There was no need to use it : they 
were on the run and bunching up as they 
headed straight for the caller, and he was 
coming for the mouth of the wings at won- 
derful speed for so old a man, bounding 
along all bent over, and holding his robe 
tightly wrapped around him. 

Up over the ridges he came, and down 
through the hollows between, sometimes in 
and sometimes out of sight of the buffalo. 
They steadily gained upon him ; when he 
came into the mouth of the wings they were 
almost to the far side of the coulee. ** He 
must soon turn to one of the wings and hide," 
I said to myself. 

Just then Rising Wolf nudged me — we 
were lying flat side by side — and pointed to 
the west : the other herd of bufl^alo was on 
the run. Our herd, following the caller, had 
frightened it, and it was heading toward the 

99 



Apaiik, Caller of Buffalo 

wino^s, coming to mix in with this one, and 
with it flee from whatever danger it was tliat 
threatened. I do not think that Little Otter, 
closely pursued and running his best, saw this 
herd, nor did the stampeders lying along the 
line of the other wing ; they had eyes only 
for the herd now entering the mouth of the 
wings. On it came with a rush, on up the 
slope from the coulee. As its leaders passed 
in front of us, I saw among them the white 
butfalo, a cow; just now and then a glimpse 
of the head and hump of her. At the same 
time, I saw Little Otter swerve to the west 
and then drop on the line of that wing. The 
leaders of the herd lost him when he threw 
himself flat in the grass, but they ran on, 
forced ahead by those behind them. And 
then for the first time thev noticed the big 
herd rushing; down from the west, and as but- 
falo always will do, swerved in their course 
the sooner to meet it. 

What followed happened more quickly 
than I can tell it. When the leaders of our 
herd turned, the people along the outer end 
of that west wing rose up and yelled and 
waved their robes, trving to turn them back. 
They did turn slightly, but the whole, closely 

lOO 



Apauk, Caller of BufTalo 

packed herd of seven or eight hundred had 
already swerved westward and could not 
quickly change its course. The foremost an- 
imals had to go on because of the pressure 
upon them of those behind, and now that 
they had to face their enemy, man, they did 
so with courage: they snorted and tossed 
their sharp - horned heads and charged 
straight at the line of shouting people. 
They, the stampeders, were now the stam- 
peded. They turned and scattered out, run- 
ning for their lives. Some did escape, but 
those who had been in front of the center 
of the herd went down. 

We out there at the end of the other 
wing, can you imagine how terribly we felt? 
The close-packed herd and blinding dust hid 
them from our view, but we knew that some 
of our people were being trampled to death 
right in front of us. Worst of all, we could 
not help them ; we dared not move for fear 
of more widely scattering the herd. Farther 
in toward the river the stampeders hidden 
along both wings sprang up and were hurry- 
ing out, but, of course, they could do no 
good; their shouting and robe-weaving could 
save not one life. 

lOI 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

As quickly as the buffalo had come in 
between the wings, they went out through 
the upper one and were joined by the other 
herd and went galloping away toward the 
river above the cliffs. Even before Rising 
Wolf and I could run halfway across the 
space between the wings, others were arriv- 
ing where the buffalo had broken out, and the 
cry went up : " Little Otter ! he is dead." 

Others were named, but I only half-heard 
their names ; I could think of but one thing, 
that Little Otter, last caller in all three 
tribes of us, had made his final call and 
gone to the Sand Hills. I went and stood 
by his body, stretched out there in the 
grass as though he but slept. His face was 
peaceful. The imprint of a huge, dusty 
hoof on the bosom of his yellow leather 
shirt told what had killed him. Long I 
stood there and mourned for his going. Not 
so much that I had hoped through him to 
learn to call the buffalo, but because I loved 
and respected him, man of kind and gentle 
ways, bringer of plenty for the people. As 
his woman came, wailing and calling his 
name, to take his body to camp and then 
give it burial, I turned away and went home 

I02 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

with my sister and Suyaki. There was 
mourning in many a lodge that night, and 
for a long time thereafter. Seven of our peo- 
ple had been killed and five crippled by the 
breaking-out rush of the buffalo. 

That evening I went with No Runner to 
Lone Walker's lodge^ and sat for a time 
with the chiefs and others gathered there. 
There were long silences as the pipe went 
around ; every one was thinking about the 
passing of Little Otter and the seven stam- 
peders. 

Said Lone Walker: " He should not have 
tried to call when another herd was so near; 
he knew the danger of it." 

"What is done, is done," said another. 
"And now we have not in the three tribes 
of us a single caller." 

" And why have n't we ? " old Tail Feath- 
ers exclaimed. " In my young days we had 
a number of them in this tribe alone." 

" I will tell you why it is : because nowa- 
days every one is crazy about horses," an- 
swered an old medicine man. ** Our war- 
riors, young and old, think only about going 
to war and taking horses ; they will not 
take the time to do anything else. Horses 
103 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

we must have, of course, but why any man 
should want ten times as many as he can 
use, that is what I do not understand." 

Spoke up a young warrior named Four 
Horns : " It is different now from what it 
was in the old days," he said. " Even if we 
have no caller, we shall not starve; I can 
chase and kill buffalo on horseback, and 
bring in the meat on horseback." 

"Yes, so you can, but. we cannot all do 
that. And I cannot believe that you are 
willing to hunt day after day to bring in 
meat for the widows and orphans," Lone 
Walker told him. 

And then he added: "Let it be known 
that I will give ten horses to the first one 
of our tribe who will call a herd of buffalo 
for us." 

Others said that they would also give 
horses to any one who would learn to call 
buffalo, who would first decoy a herd to the 
cliffs. And at that I cried out : ** Be pre- 
pared to give them to me. I am going to 
be a caller — " 

But there I stopped, all confused at what 
I had done : youths are not expected to say 
anything in a gathering of chiefs ; it is their 
104 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

place to keep quiet and listen. I need not 
have been afraid, however, for to my sur- 
prise they all cried out to me to hurry and 
learn to call. And No Runner said to them : 
" He will be the one to get your horses. I 
know that he will become a caller." 

The talk turned again to the terrible ac- 
cident of the morning, and Four Horns re- 
marked : " If one could call buffalo on 
horseback, he, at least, would never be in 
danger." 

That remark remained with me. I went 
home and repeated it to old Suyaki, and she 
said that she did n't believe buffalo could be 
decoyed that way. I kept thinking that pos- 
sibly it could be done. 

After such an ending of the buffalo call- 
ing, no one, of course, wanted to camp any 
longer there under the cliffs. We were later 
to go north to exchange beaver and other 
furs with the Red Coat traders for their 
powder and balls, and various goods, but 
now we started as soon as the cripples were 
well enough to ride comfortably in travois. 
I had no beaver skins or anything else of 
value, for what with going on raids, and try- 
ing to call buffalo, and getting my shoulder 
105 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

broken, I had been unable to do any trap- 
ping; and now we needed many things, 
powder and ball, blankets, knives and files, 
which only furs could buy, and my stifl?^ 
shoulder and arm would not permit my set- 
ting traps. 

** Never mind," said my sister, when I 
complained about it, **I will go with you. 
Just show me how to do it and I will set the 
traps." 

And that she did. On our way north, 
camping for days on every stream, she set 
the traps as I directed, often wading waist- 
deep in the water to do so, and she and 
old Suyaki took care of the catch, fleshing 
the skins and lacing them on willow hoops 
to dry. Upon arriving at the Red Coats' fort 
we had forty beaver, two otter, and a few 
mink skins. Myself, I bought powder and 
ball, a blanket, and a knife, with ten skins. 
All the rest I made my sister and Suyaki 
trade for those different things that women 
like, and they were happy with their store 
of blue and red cloth for dresses, needles, 
awls, thread, beads, and a big, shining brass 
kettle. I took the balls to Rising Wolf and 
he melted them, and with his mould cast 
1 06 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the lead into balls to fit my rifle. There 
were ninety-five of them, and he gave me 
five to make an even hundred. I fislt rich. 

We did not remain long at the fort of the 
Red Coats. Back south we went, and at 
Marias River winter struck us. We camped 
a long time there, and then, after a big chi- 
nook, went on south across the Missouri to 
the Judith River, where we remained until 
green grass began to sprout. 

Winter was not the time for what I had 
to do, so I trapped and hunted, and in the 
evenings sat much with the chiefs and med- 
icine men, listening to their talk. When not 
with them, I generally remained at home 
with my sister and our almost-mother ; some- 
how, I did not care to visit around with my 
friends, and join in their dancing and games. 
What I was longing to do was heavy on 
my mind ; I thought and thought about it ; I 
prayed and made sacrifices; I tried to get a 
revealing dream, and got no help of any 
kind. 

With the coming of green grass, the chiefs 

began to talk about breaking camp and 

going north to trade at the fort of the Red 

Coats. The North Blackfeet and the Kai'na, 

107 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the Gros Ventres, too, were to meet our 
tribe there some time in the next moon, 
and counsel with us about plans for the sum- 
mer. 

On the evening that the camp crier in- 
formed the people that the start for the north 
would be made the following morning, I 
made up my mind what to do. " Pitaki, 
Suyaki, listen!" I said to them as we sat 
around the iire. " To-morrow we part for a 
time. You will go north with the camp, and 
trade what skins we have, and I shall wan- 
der by myself for a time and try to learn to 
call the buffalo." 

" No, brother, you shall not go alone," 
my sister cried; " we will go with you." 

"Yes. Your trail is our trail," old Suyaki 
exclaimed. 

**It is not," I answered. "Spring is here, 
and with it war parties of all our enemies 
are on the move. Alone, I can avoid them ; 
with you and the lodge and the horses we 
should just be signaling them to come and 
kill us." 

" My son, listen ! This is the way it must 
be," Suyaki insisted. " The lodge, and all 
our things and the horses can go on ; No 
io8 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Runner and his woman will take care of 
them, and we shall go with you. Three can 
hide from the enemy as well as one can. 
Why, we can help you in every way. We 
will watch out for the enemy for you ; we 
will cook your food; build the little shel- 
ters that you must have when the rains 
come, and keep you well supplied with 
moccasins." 

" Oh, what fun it will be to wander over 
the country just by ourselves. Say yes, 
brother! Say yes!" Pitaki cried. 

" Give me time to think," I answered. 
" Let me go talk with No Runner about 
it." 

I went, and they followed close after me. 

No Runner favored Suyaki's plan. "Yes. 
Let -them go with you," he said. " Our 
women often go with us to war, then why 
not on this medicine quest? But my advice 
is that you do not leave us until after we 
cross the Missouri ; then go you up the Te- 
ton, or Sun River, to the foot of the moun- 
tains : there war parties are not so many as 
they are in this country." 

Came the question where and when we 
should find our people later on. No Runner 
109 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

said that he would try to get the chiefs to 
decide when, and by what route, they would 
come back south from the fort of the Red 
Coats. He went to them about it that even- 
ing, and they said that they would think it 
over, and hold council to decide, when we 
reached the Missouri. 

A few days later we struck the Missouri 
at The-Ledge-across-the-River, crossed on 
the good ford above it and made camp. 
Some summers before this time our people 
had found a strange, new trail running from 
the foot of the falls and rapids up to the still 
water at the mouth of the Sun River. Along 
it were here and there pieces of round logs 
that had been cut by axes, so we knew that 
white men had made it, but for what pur- 
pose we could not understand until Rising 
Wolf now told us what he had learned from 
his Red Coat company. They had been told 
by other Red Coats living on the shore of 
the Great Salt Water to the West, that a 
band of Long Knives out on discovery had 
come up the Missouri in boats, and across 
the mountains on horses, clear to their fort, 
and had gone back to the Long Knife coun- 
try by the trail that they had made. They 
no 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

had made a trail and dragged their boats 
along it around the Missouri falls,' 

Rising Wolf also said that his Red Coat 
people were angry because the Long Knives 
had discovered this rich country: they feared 
that, now that they knew how rich it was 
in beaver and other fur, they would come 
back into it and build forts and trade with 
us prairie people. 

Our chiefs said that they hoped the Long 
Knives would come, and come soon ; that it 
would be a good thing for us to be able to 
buy guns and other trade goods in this south 
part of our country. 

What fools we were. Why couldn't we 
have seen, why did not our medicine warn 
us, that the coming of these first white men. 
Red Coats and Long Knives both, meant the 
beginning of the end for our game and fur, 
and for us ! 

Well, just as we were going into camp 
there at the mouth of Sun River, six men on 
foot were seen approaching us. We thought 
that they were a war party of North Black- 
feet, or Kai'na, but they proved to be mes- 
sengers to us from the Flat Head chiefs, ask- 

* The Lewis and Clark Expedition. 
Ill 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ing that their people be allowed to come 
out on the plains and camp, and trade dried 
camas and bitter root for our buffalo leather, 
and kill a few of our buffalo. 

The chiefs held council that night, and 
then gave them the answer that they wanted. 
It was that the Flat Heads were to bring 
plenty of the roots, and meet the Pikuni 
right there at the mouth of Sun River fifty 
nights from that time. 

So also was set the time and the place for 
us to rejoin our people. It was not now 
necessary for No Runner and his woman to 
take our lodge and property away north and 
back. We turned over to them our furs to 
trade for us, and our horses, and cached 
everything that we did not need, lodge and 
all, right there in the thick brush by the 
river. The things that we did take were: 
each of us a good warm robe; some buffalo 
leather for moccasins ; awls, needles, and 
sinew thread ; flint and steel ; my powder and 
balls, my rifle and bows and arrows, and the 
yellow metal kettle. Suyaki said that she 
would take no chances on our cache being 
raised and losing that. As our people moved 
out across the flat on the trail to the north, 
111 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

we struck off up the valley. Some said to us 
as we parted : ** You are making a big mis- 
take ; you are going to your death up there." 

But No Runner's last words were : *' Take 
courage ! I know that you will do that which 
you are setting out to do." 

The day was warm. We traveled slowly, 
often resting in the shade of the big cotton- 
wood groves bordering the river. Toward 
evening we built a small fire in thick brush, 
and cooked and ate some meat, then went 
on a little way farther and lay down for the 
night. Nothing happened, and the next 
morning w^e wxre on our way at sunrise. 

From where it leaves the mountains, clear 
to its end in the Missouri, Sun River has the 
finest valley of all in our country. Its bot- 
toms are wide and long, and covered wdth 
the grasses that the buffalo and antelope like 
best; and nowhere else except on the Mis- 
souri are there such fine, big groves of cot- 
tonw^ood. On our w^ay up the valley our 
course was just within the edge of these 
groves; w^e could always look out upon the 
bottoms, and the slopes of the plains on our 
side, north of the river. Game was very 
plentiful ; herd after herd of antelope and 

113 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

buffalo in the open bottoms, and in the tim- 
ber so many deer and elk that some of them 
were always springing up ahead of us. We did 
not like that, because a band of them would 
often run out of the timber and circle back 
into it in our rear, a sure sign to any roving 
war party that what they sought was travel- 
ing there. 

So it was that we often went out to the 
very edge of the timber and looked up and 
down the bottom, and out at the hills, to see 
if any of the frightened game had drawn the 
attention of some enemy to our course; but 
always the game farther out was grazing and 
resting quietly, and we would go on with 
the feeling that all was well. 

We were out of meat, and I had to kill 
some during the day. I waited until the sun 
was getting low, and then killed a deer with 
bow and arrow. We took of the carcass only 
what we could easily carry: the tongue, the 
tripe, and the ribs, and going on to the 
upper end of the grove, built a fire and had 
our evening meal. When it was over, I went 
out to the edge of the timber for a last day- 
light look at the country, while the others 
sat by the fire, mending their moccasins. I 
114 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

stood a long time on watch, and was think- 
ing of going back when I saw a band of elk 
break out of the timber near where I had 
killed the deer. They ran down the bottom 
and back into the timber, and then, where 
they had come out of it, I saw something 
moving in the high grass. It was quite dusk 
now and I could not see it well, but I thought 
that the object had the shape of a person. 



.^> 



CHAPTER VI 

BACK to the fire I went as fast as I 
could run: "Sister! Suyaki ! Come 
away from here at once," I said. 
"Something moving at the edge of the grove 
looked to me very much like a man !" 

They asked no questions, said not a word 
as they sprang up and began stuffing their 
sewing things into the little sacks in which 
they carried them. They grabbed up their 
packs, I took my weapons, and my packs of 
ammunition and meat, and we went up to 
the very point of the grove. Beyond was a 
long strip of open grassland running to the 
next grove ; I did not like to cross it. On 
the opposite side of the river was another 
grove. " Be the water deep, or shallow, we 
ii6 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

must go over there," I said, and led the way 
into the stream. It was not deep, only a little 
above our knees, and we were soon over in 
the shelter of the wood. There I had to wait 
until the others put on the moccasins which 
they had been repairing. 

" Tell us about it ; what you saw over 
there?" Suyaki asked. 

" Some elk ran out from the grove about 
where I killed the deer, and then where they 
came out something moved in the shadow 
of the trees ; it looked like a person ; it went 
back into the timber," I told them. 

" But it may have been a bear," said Su- 
yaki. 

" Yes, perhaps it was." 

" Well, be it bear or person, we are not 
going far from here," she said. " I have to 
go back to that fireplace : I left my kettle 
there." 

Sure enough, in our haste to get away 
we had overlooked the brass kettle. It was 
something that we could not wxU do with- 
out. I thought for a little time, and said: 
" If that was an enemy, I saw over there, he 
was on his way up the valley, and no doubt 
there were others with him. Perhaps they 
117 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

were on our trail. Anyhow, we will take no 
chances ; we will go a ways down the valley 
on this side of the river, and remain there 
until to-morrow night. By that time the 
danger will have passed and we will recover 
the kettle and go on." 

That we did, hiding in thick brush close 
at the river's edge. When the evening of 
the next day came, we recrossed the river 
and sneaked up through the big grove to 
our fireplace, and as we came to it, Suyaki 
whispered : " My beautiful kettle is gone." 

But I was not looking for the kettle ; I 
knew that it was gone before even Suyaki 
spoke, for a little puff of wind had blown 
across the fireplace and carried off the top 
ashes and exposed a few red coals ; fire had 
been burning there but a short time back. 
And there, beside the fireplace, lay broken 
deer-leg bones that had been roasted for the 
marrow ; they were all in a little pile, and 
with them was the little brush-ended stick 
with which the marrow had been extracted. 

" Only one man has been here," I said. 

" How do you know that?" Pitaki asked. 

I pointed to the bones and explained : 
" One person roasted those and ate the mar- 
ii8 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

row ; had there been two or more persons, 
each of them would have had his share of 
the bones, and we should have found them 
scattered all around the fireplace." 

** I don't care how many there are of 
them, they have my shining kettle," said 
old Suyaki, almost crying. 

" Brother, I am so hungry. Can't we roast 
some meat and eat it?" Pitaki asked. 

I thought about it. We were very hun- 
gry; we had eaten nothing since leaving this 
place the night before. Perhaps this person 
who had used our fireplace was still near by ; 
anyhow, we must eat. " Build a fire and 
cook plenty of meat," I said, "and while 
you are cooking it I will stand back from 
the light and keep watch." 

I went away back in the timber and stood 
with rifle cocked and ready. Night had come 
and the blaze of the fire lighted up the trees 
and the ground around for some little dis- 
tance, and in between the trees were black 
shadows, black spaces into which I could 
not see; I felt uneasy; I watched for some- 
thing to come out from those black places ; 
for the soft steps of moccasined feet ; for the 
snapping of a dry twig : as soon as I sighted 
119 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

anything I should shoot at it, and rush in 
and use my rifle as a club. 

I stood there a long time, watching and 
listening. Came to me the odor of roasting 
meat and I became more and more hungry. 
I saw my sister turn some ribs fresh side to 
the fire and knew that they were half-cooked ; 
I would soon have some of them. And then 
I gave a start : from out of the blackness 
beyond the fire I saw a rabbit come leaping 
across the lighted space and then dodge off 
into the shadows. What had frightened it — 
was the enemy sneaking upon us ? 

I watched that far side more closely ; lis- 
tened, open-mouthed, more intently. What 
had frightened the rabbit ? Maybe a coyote; 
a fox ? No, I should have heard the patter 
of their feet as they trotted by. " A man, an 
enemy, is across there in the blackness," I 
said to myself. 

And just then Suyaki called out to me : 
"My son, come and eat." 

I did not answer. I was angry that she 
had called so loudly. 

Again she cried, and much louder than 
before : " Come and eat, my son ! " 

And as she said it I heard, across in the 
1 20 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

darkness, a strange voice wail : " Oh, my 
own people ! Do not shoot. I come ! I 
come ! 

And with that, into the light came a lit- 
tle old woman wearing a quill-embroidered 
leather wrap, and carrying a kettle, our brass 
kettle. I reached the fire as soon as she did, 
knew that I had never seen her before, and 
wondered if she were a real person ; if this 
were not some sort of a trap for us. But 
no. None but members of our tribe could 
speak our language as she spoke it. She had 
dropped the kettle and was kneeling beside 
Suyaki and embracing her, and crying: "Oh, 
it is good to be with you, with my own peo- 
ple after all these winters. Oh, speak. Say 
something. Let me hear my own kind of 
talk again." 

Suyaki had tried to draw away from her ; 
was still trying to get free from her, when 
suddenly she returned the embrace and cried: 
" I know you even if you have grown old. 
I know you by that scar at the corner of 
your mouth : you are Ahsanaki (Painted 
Woman). In the long ago, when we were 
one summer at peace with the Crows, you 
married one of them." 



121 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" Yes ! Yes ! I did ! And you, you are — 
oh, so many winters have passed, and we are 
old. I cannot tell who you are," she said. 

**Suyaki." 

" You are Suyaki ! Why, we were friends. 
We used to play together. Oh, Suyaki. Pity 
me. I am very poor," the strange old woman 
cried. 

"All is well," our almost-mother told her. 
" Do not worry ; we will eat, and then you 
shall tell us how it is that after all these win- 
ters we meet here." 

Sister gave me my share of the roast ribs 
and we began to eat, but the two old women 
were so excited over their strange meeting 
that they sat with meat in hand and forgot 
that they had it. 

"Tell us; tell us now how it is that you 
are here, and alone," Suyaki demanded. 

" Because I felt that I must rejoin my peo- 
ple and die among them," the other answered. 
" My man was good to me ; I loved him ; he 
died a moon ago. I had one son, oh, a good, 
brave young man. He went first, last sum- 
mer it was ; he was swimming in the Elk 
River with some friends, and right in the 
midst of them he gave a cry and went down, 

122 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

and they never saw him again. The Under- 
Water People had taken him for their own. 
Then, when my man died, I could stand it 
no longer. What were the other Crows to 
me ? I hated them ; they were always speak- 
ing ill of the Pikuni, calling them cow- 
ards; nothing people. Once I was passing 
a lodge where the chiefs were feasting and 
smoking, and I heard one say : ' Ha ! The 
Pikuni .? They are nothing ! Just coward 
dogs ! ' 

"Well, that made me so mad that I thrust 
aside the door curtain and looked in and 
said: * If the Pikuni are that, why don't you 
take back the Missouri River country from 
which they have driven you ? It is yours, is 
it not ? Your fathers owned it ; well, why 
not take it away from the cowardly Pikuni.?' 

"And with that I dropped the curtain 
and went on, and so long as I was within 
hearing of that lodge I heard not one word 
spoken. I had shamed them. 

"My man had many relatives. When he 
died they took all his horses, all his prop- 
erty, everything except one old horse that 
they said I could use. One night I took that 
horse and started north to find my own peo- 

123 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

pie. Soon after crossing the Elk River I lost 
him ; he was hobbled for the night, and when 
I awoke in the morning he was gone; he 
must have broken his hobbles and started 
straight back to his band. Well, I kept on, 
using up my dried meat, and then catching 
ground squirrels and roasting them." 

" Oh, were you not afraid, traveling all 
alone?" my sister asked. 

" Not afraid, but oh, so anxious : I wanted 
to live to see my people. And had it not 
been for you here, I should never have seen 
them. In crossing the Missouri, back at the 
mouth of this river, my raft came apart in 
the middle of the stream and my little pack 
in which I carried fire drill and bow, and 
my knife, and the cord with which I snared 
ground squirrels, was swept away. I hung 
onto one log and reached shore just as I 
thought that I must surely be carried down 
over the falls." 

" How long ago was that ?" I asked. 

" Five days." 

" And we crossed there four days ago. 
Had you been a day later you would have 
found us all at the mouth of this river," 
Suyaki told her. 

124 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" And the others, where are they ? And 
you, why off here by yourselves?" 

" The tribe has gone north to trade, and 
will be back at the mouth of this river in 
forty-six days," I said, and then asked her 
to go on with her story. 

"Well, without fire instruments, with no 
snaring cord, I began to starve. I just wan- 
dered from bottom to bottom, digging for 
roots and finding few. Then, one day when 
I was resting, I heard voices near by. I 
crawled through the brush and saw you all 
skinning a deer. I could not know who you 
were; I could not hear your voices; I 
thought you were enemies, other-side-of- 
the-mountains people. After you had gone 
on I took sharp stones and cut off a leg of 
the deer, and ate a little of the meat raw, 
and then I followed your trail: I had to 
know who you were. I carried the leg of 
deer with me. The eyes of the old are 
poor. I soon lost your trail. Back and forth 
in the timber I went, and out on the bottom, 
and could not find it — " 

" When you came into the open I saw 
you, and thought that you were some en- 
emy. We fled from you," I interrupted. 
125 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

"Ah ! That was it; that was why I found 
your camp-fire deserted," she exclaimed. 
" When I came to it, after first looking care- 
fully around and waiting until it was nearly 
out, the first thing I saw was your yellow 
metal kettle. Oh, what a find was that. A 
fire; hot boiled meat and soup! I snatched 
up that kettle and ran and got water in it, 
and built up the fire and started the meat 
boiling, and while waiting for that I roasted 
the leg bones and ate the marrow in them : 
*Let the enemy come if they must,' I kept 
saying to myself; * I shall, anyhow, have one 
good, hot meal before I die.' 

" But after eating of the boiled meat and 
the soup, I did not feel so brave; I said to 
myself: ' Here is food enough to last a long 
time ; why take chances by sitting here ? 
With food to keep up your strength, you can 
find your people.' 

" So I covered the fire with ashes and 
earth, to keep the coal alive, and went away 
from it and lay down; and early this morn- 
ing I went to the deer carcass and hacked all 
the meat off it with sharp stones, and brought 
it close out there and hung it on tree limbs 
to dry. Not long ago I came out here and 
126 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

uncovered the coals and built up a fire and 
had more hot meat and soup, and then went 
back to turn over the drying meat. After that 
I fell asleep, and upon awakening was coming 
here to cover the coals for the night when 
I saw the blaze of the fire, and you around 
it. I crept closer ; I heard you, Suyaki, cry 
out to some one to come and eat, and oh, 
how glad I was. Oh, my old friend; oh, 
children, how glad I am to be with you this 
night." 

Now, that was a brave old woman. Clear 
from the Elk River she had come alone, on 
foot, along the edge of the mountains, and 
had been unafraid of war parties, bears, deep, 
swift waters and all the other dangers of the 
long trail. I doubt not that she would have 
found our people, even if she had not found 
us that night, for the meat of the deer I had 
killed would have carried her on north to 
them. Surely, her medicine was strong; the 
gods were with her; I thought that she 
could, perhaps, help me: 

" Ahsanaki," I said, "you asked why we 
are here by ourselves. I will tell you : it is 
that I want to learn to call the buffalo. Can 
you help me? " 

127 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

She thought some time before she an- 
swered : " I don't know that I can. My 
man was a caller, a good one; many and 
many a herd he brought to the traps on the 
Bighorn and Tongue Rivers. I used to get 
out at the wings and see him wave his robe, 
and turn and run, the buffalo following 
him." 

"But what else did he do?" I asked. 
" Did he not call out to them — make some 
kind of a cry that started them after him ?" 

" I never heard him. He never said that 
he did," she replied. And I knew that, like 
all the callers, he had kept the secret of his 
power to himself. 

" What most hurt the Crows in being 
driven from this country," said Ahsanaki, 
"was the loss of the buffalo trap just above 
here. I have often heard the old men mourn 
about it. They said that it was the best trap 
in the whole country because of the many 
little ridges back from the cliff." 

"Why, I have never even heard of it. 
Suyaki, tell me why we have never called 
the buffalo there?" I asked. 

" It is not strange that you never heard of 
it ; we quit going there long before you were 
128 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

born," she answered. "It is a place of bad 
medicine; something happened there, I re- 
member it well. The second summer after 
I got my man we came here to trap buffalo. 
White Bear was the best caller we had. 
There was another one, a younger man, 
named Sees Black. 

" Well, after we had been in camp a few 
days, the watchers reported five big herds 
of buffalo away out beyond the wings, and 
White Bear began his four nights' and four 
days' fast. When it was over, he sent his 
woman to call the chief to his lodge : * I 
have had a dream warning ; I shall not call 
buffalo for you here,' he told him. 

"*How is that?' the chief asked. 

" * I have had two dreams, both bad,* 
White Bear answered. *In the first one my 
secret helper told me that something was 
wrong up there back of the cliff. In the sec- 
ond one I saw people gathered back of the 
cliff, the women crying for some one dead. 
Beyond them a big herd of buffalo was run- 
ning, and near the crowd stood a strange 
man, laughing. I looked at him more closely 
and discovered that he was a Crow ; and while 
I was staring at him he laughed harder than 
129 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ever, and as quick as I spat my hands together 
he disappeared. So, chief, there is the warn- 
ing; the Crows' ghosts are here at this trap; 
they made to do us harm ; I shall not try to 
call the buffalo to it.' 

"The chief said nothing to White Bear, 
but went to his lodge and told that the caller 
had had a bad dream and would not run. 
The news spread, and when Sees Black heard 
it he went to the chief and told him to send 
the stampeders to the wings: * if White Bear 
is afraid, I am not. I shall call the buffalo 
for you,' he said, and went straight up on the 
cliff. The watchers had reported a herd near 
the mouth of the wings. 

" The people went to the wings, and when 
all were cached Sees Black walked out and 
called the herd. He went very far out, and 
before he could return even to the mouth of 
the wings, a big cow running far in the lead 
knocked him down, and those behind fin- 
ished him with their sharp hoofs as they ran. 
Then we knew that White Bear's dream had 
been a true warning ; that the place was bad 
medicine. We moved away from there and 
never since have the Pikuni used the trap." 

"To-morrow I shall see that place," I 
130 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

said, and both of the old women stared at 
me as though they thought me crazy, and 
begged me to keep away from it. I made 
no promise, and told them that it was time 
for us to move back from the fire and sleep. 
My sister was the only one who slept much 
that night; the two women talked on and 
on about old times, and I kept thinking 
about the buffalo trap above us. If I could 
only learn the caller's secret, what a fine 
thing it would be to trap a herd there for 
the Pikuni and the Flatheads when they 
should meet and camp together later on. Be- 
fore I slept, it came to me that I had for- 
gotten to mark out the day just passed; I sat 
up and cut another crease in the ramrod of 
my rifle. 

We ate our morning meal before sun-up, 
and when it was finished I said : " Now, two 
almost-mothers mine, let us counsel together. 
What had we best do ? What shall I do ? 
What can I do in order to get the knowl- 
edge that I seek?" 

" Fast, and pray, and dream," Suyaki 
quickly answered. 

"Go watch the buffalo; keep close to 
them; be a buffalo yourself in mind. Thus 

131 



:? 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

you may find the way to decoy them," 
Ahsanaki told me. 

Said my sister: " Brother, do both things, 
and we will keep watch on the country. But 
first kill plenty of meat fi^r us." 

"We should not camp in this valley; it 
is a regular trail fiar war parties of the plains' 
tribes on their way to raid the across-the- 
mountains tribes," said Suyaki. 

That was true. I decided that we should 
move out of it. But first I had to see that 
trap of the ghosts; the one that the Crows 
said was the best trap in all the land. "We 
will go on up to the cliffs and stop one 
night, and then move somewhere out of the 
valley," I said, and we started, the old women 
none too willingly. 

We reached the place long before the 
middle of the day. It is where the valley 
suddenly narrows, and on either side the 
slopes give way to cliffs, not so high as those 
of the Two Medicine cliffs, but more abrupt. 
Above this narrow place, the valley widens 
out again.' 

The trap itself was at the foot of the cliffs 

' The location is a kw miles above Fort Shaw, from which 

it may be plainly seen. 

132 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

on the north side of the river, and was the 
largest Ihad ever seen. Many winters had 
passed since it had been used, but some of 
the big logs that formed the fence were 
still unrotted, especially those that were above 
the ground. I thought that the place would 
hold as many as ten hundred live buffalo, to 
say nothing of the hundreds that would pile 
up dead from their fall from the cliff. I 
climbed over the fence and walked along the 
foot of the rock wall, stepping not upon 
earth and rock, but upon a solid layer of 
bones and horns and hoofs I know not how 
thick. The bones were mostly well rotted 
and broke under my feet, but the horn tips 
and hoof tips were hard, though turned to a 
light brown color. These last after all other 
parts of an animal have disappeared. 

The women stood at the fence watching 
me. I went back to them and told them 
that I was going up on top, and that they 
should go into the grove up river a little 
ways from the cliff, and wait there for me. 
The trail of the long-ago hunters still was 
plain enough from the bottom to the rim of 
the plain where the down-river end of the 
cliff gave out. I followed it, thinking what 

^33 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

a multitude of people had passed up and 
down it, and soon came out on top, and 
walked over to where the first wing started 
out from the cliff. The distance to the be- 
ginning of the other wing was much greater 
than that separating the wings of the Two 
Medicine trap. Looking out plainsward, I 
could see only here and there the rock piles 
of the wings, for the plain was very rough ; 
just ridge after ridge, not high, but small 
and close together. I started out to see just 
where was the mouth of the wings and 
walked and walked, twice the length of the 
Two Medicine trap wings, to where the 
rock piles ended, far, far apart, at the slope 
of a wide, shallow coulee of water holes and 
strips of willow brush. Truly, this was an 
immense trap ; a whole tribe of people would 
be none too many to scatter along its wings ; 
there would be none left to idle in the lodges 
when a herd was to be decoyed here. 

Out beyond the coulee, and up and down 
it, were several herds of buffalo ; by the 
signs in the grass a herd had that morning 
passed where I stood. What a chance there 
had been to decoy them to the cliff. Oh, 
how I wanted to be able to do it. Right 

134 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

there I sat down and prayed for the power ; 
prayed I know not how long to my medi- 
cine ; to the sun ; to Old Man, and all the 
ancient ones to give me help ; to in some 
way give me the caller's secret, that I might 
decoy a herd for my people into this very 
trap. 

It was long past midday when I arose and 
started back toward the cliff. I crossed the 
mouth of the wings, and then followed in 
the upper one, noticing that its rock piles 
were small and quite far apart. One of my 
moccasin strings became loose and I sat 
down on one of the piles and fastened it, and 
then noticed upon the ground, just in front 
of my feet, one of those rare, medicine buf- 
falo rocks (eniskim) that our people prize 
so highly. Who had owned it ? I wondered. 
And why had it been left there ? Such things 
were never thrown away. I picked it up 
and put it in my ball pouch along with the 
flint arrow points, and started on, much 
pleased with my find. It was great medi- 
cine ; in the long ago, when our fathers had 
been about to die from starvation, a girl had 
found one of its kind, and through its power 
the buffalo had been made to return from 

135 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

wherever was the far country into which 
they had drifted, and the people had been 
saved. How happened it that my moccasin 
string loosened just there ? I felt that the 
gods had caused it ; that they had taken that 
way to guide me to the medicine rock ; to 
give me a sign that they were with me. I 
was very happy as I went on toward the cliff. 
I passed through the line of the rock piles 
of the wing, heading for the upper end of 
the cliff, and was almost to it when I heard 
the thud and rush of many feet upon the 
slope in which the rock wall terminated. I 
threw myself flat down in the grass and had 
no more than done so when a big band of 
antelope came up over the rim of the slope 
and straight toward me. I had to sit up and 
wave my hands at them, else they would 
surely have run right over me and trampled 
me severely with their sharp hoofs; as it was 
they passed so close on either side of me that 
I could have poked out my rifle against their 
sides. They came and were gone. I did not 
believe that my women had frightened 
them. On hands and knees I crept to the 
edge of the cliff and looked down into the 
valley, and what I saw there made me catch 

136 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

my breath : a war party of eight riders was 
driving a band of ten horses into the very 
grove where I had told the women to go and 
wait for me. 




CHAPTER VII 



THERE is a chance that the women 
saw them — heard them coming and 
got out of their way," I said to myself. 
I relied upon Suyaki's ever-open ears and her 
sharp eyes and her caution ; she was ever on 
the lookout for danger. But, oh, how anx- 
ious I was ; how I wished that my eyes had 
the medicine to look down through the 
branches and green leaves of that grove and 
see what was happening there. I was too far 
away to hear if the women screamed to me 
for help. What if the war party had seized 
them ? At the thought of my sister being car- 
ried away into the enemy's camp, I turned 
sick. I had to go down there and see what 
138 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

had happened, and in some way try to rescue 
my loved ones if they were captives. I could 
not think of any way successfully to fight 
eight men ; I prayed to the gods to show me 
what to do in this time of trouble; and as 
I prayed I drew back from the edge of the 
cliff and got up and ran east to the trail I had 
ascended. I ran down it, for its whole length 
was around the point below the grove; and 
when I arrived at the bottom I crept across 
the flat through the sagebrush and tall clumps 
of giant grass. Just as I reached the river's 
edge, I saw one of the war party ascending the 
trail I had followed down, and knew that he 
was going to watch the country from the top 
of the cliff. That meant the party intended 
to take a long rest in the grove. But what if 
the watcher should see my footsteps in the 
trail? I remembered places where the rains 
had washed sand and soft earth upon it. Per- 
haps I had unintentionally stepped over them ; 
I could not tell. How I did keep my eyes 
on that watcher, expecting him suddenly to 
turn and run for the grove with news of fresh 
moccasin tracks in that trail. But no ! he 
went up to the end of it without stopping, 
and on along the cliff, and sat down upon 

139 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

its edge. And then I slowly drew down In 
the shelter of the cuthank, and stole along 
through the shallow water to the edge of the 
grove and entered the thick willows. 

As silently as a snake, I wriggled along 
through those clumps of brush, keeping a 
good watch ahead, and presently I saw in the 
space between the two growths of the wil- 
lows the slight movement of something 
brown. I stared and stared at it, but it was now 
motionless ; I moved forward half the length 
of my body and raised up and looked again, 
and saw a big embroidered sun of red and 
yellow, white and black porcupine quills, and 
knew that the brown thing was Ahsanaki's 
leather wrap. She sat with her back to me, 
the wrap close around her and concealing her 
head. What if she should turn, and cry out at 
sudden sight of me ? I went a little farther 
into an open space and stood up and snapped 
a twig; she hastily looked back over her 
shoulder and saw me plainly and was not 
alarmed ; she made me the sign for caution 
and then half-turned her head and said some- 
thing, so low that I could not hear her, but 
there was movement on her left and my sister 
and Suyaki sat up and looked at me through 
140 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the brush. Was I glad to see them ? A weight 
as heavy as a buffalo seemed to suddenly roll 
off from me. 

I crept up to them, close to Suyaki's side, 
and whispered : " Where are they .? " 

"Not far above here and close to the river,'* 
she answered. " We were up there and heard 
them coming, and ran down as far as we 
dared, and then hid in the willows. We saw 
them get off their horses and hobble some of 
them, and then when they began to gather 
wood for a fire we crawled back and back to 
this place. Some of them had meat ; I saw it; 
they are going to cook and eat." 

"Who are they.?" I next asked. 

" I cannot tell you. I was so frightened 
that I did not look closely at them." 

" Brother, maybe they are our own people. 
Don't you remember that a war party headed 
by Yellow Fish left us two nights before we 
reached the Missouri?" my sister asked. 

" We have to know if they are enemies or 
friends," I told them. " If enemies, we are 
in great danger, for at any time they may 
wander around and discover us. Now, you all 
remain quiet here while I sneak on and have 
a look at them." 

141 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

They made no objection to that ; they 
were very brave, my sister and those two 
old women. I crawled on more slowly than 
ever, disturbing not a single weed or leafed 
branch. The strip of willows was very nar- 
row, just a slender belt between the sandy 
shore of the river and the big cottonwood 
trees of the grove. I had not gone far when 
I saw that I was nearing the end of the 
strip ; a little more crawling and I could go 
no farther. I raised up a little and looked 
ahead, and saw the party sitting around a 
fire and eating. One with his back to me 
wore a single eagle tail feather straight up 
at the back of his head : they were enemies ; 
Crow or Assiniboines, it mattered not which, 
they were enemies. 

I began to consider what I had best do, 
and concluded to stay right where I was, 
so that if any of them wandered that way 
I could jump up and shoot, and make a run 
for the river and the grove on the other side 
and above, and so draw them away from 
where the women lay cached. 

The men had built their fire in a grassy 
opening in the grove, and I could see them 
all ; I counted them, seven. The one up on 
142 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the clifF made eight, the number I had seen 
ride into the grove. Off to my right, grazing 
hungrily and moving slowly down through 
the timber, were the horses that they had 
taken from some other-side-of-the-moun- 
tains tribe. I counted them, eighteen. The 
four in the rear were hobbled. They were 
all, excepting one small brown horse, of 
good size and all very fat. Three or four 
of them, I noticed, trailed ropes. I did not 
like the way they were grazing, down along 
the thicket in which we lay, for when the 
enemy came to round them up they would 
more than likely discover us. I made up my 
mind to shoot the first man to start toward 
me, and then run. 

The party soon finished eating, and then 
gathered closer together for a smoke. One 
pipe only went the rounds, and then all 
lay down ; and by that I knew they were 
very tired, and would not move, or even 
change the watcher on the cliff, until near 
sunset. I watched them a long time ; close 
wrapped in their robes they lay like so 
many dead men, fast asleep. It came to me 
that the women would be getting anxious 
about my long absence from them ; that 

143 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

they might come to learn what had become 
of me, and make trouble. I went back, as 
quietly as I could, and worrying terribly for 
their safety. The horses were grazing very 
near us, and should I start the women off to 
hide elsewhere, the watcher on the cliff 
would discover them as soon as they stepped 
out from the shelter of the grove. 

Then another thought came to me, and 
at the same time my sister crept over and 
whispered : " Why not drive off their horses ? 
That will keep them from finding us here." 

That was a part of my thought : " Listen 
carefully, all of you," I said. "There is but 
one way for me to keep you from being dis- 
covered by the enemy when they come to 
round up those horses : I am going to round 
them up myself and drive them far away. 
When I start I shall arouse the enemy ; they 
will follow me, and you will be safe enough. 
As soon as they are gone, you must cross the 
river and go almost to the top of the Square 
Butte, just as far up on this side as you can 
climb, and wait there for me. Be sure to 
wait : I may be gone two or three days. 
You have enough deer meat to last you much 
longer than that." 

144 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" But if you don't come — no, I shall not 
ask that ; I know that you will come to 
us," said Suyaki. 

" Of course I shall ; do not doubt it," I 
answered. " And now I go. See how easy it 
will be for me : some of the horses drag 
ropes." 

I arose, stuck my rifle in my belt, drew 
my knife and sneaked out to one of the 
hobbled horses and severed the rawhide 
thongs. As I straightened up, I was sur- 
prised, and angry, too, to see my sister cut- 
ting the hobbles of another horse on my 
right. I motioned her to go back, saw her 
turn to do so, and went on and freed the two 
other hobbled animals. Then I grasped the 
end of the nearest of the ropes and coiled it 
as I approached the horse that trailed it. He 
made no effort to shy away from me, and 
I had no trouble in bridling him with two 
half-hitches of the rope around his jaw, and 
mounting him. 

All the time I had been watching in the 
direction where the enemy lay sleeping. I 
kept looking that way as I began to round 
up the horses and drive them out of the 
grove ; and then, turning to head the horses 

H5 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

on my right into the bunch, you can imagine 
my surprise when I saw that my sister had 
caught one of the rope-draggers,and mounted 
him, and was turning in the farthest of the 
animals! 

I rode down beside her: "Get off that 
horse! Hurry! Go backtoSuyaki!" I called 
to her, and she just gave me the sign, " No." 

"You must! Get down and run back," I 
commanded, and again she made the sign, 
"No." 

"Then I must put you off the horse," I 
said, and was reaching out to do so when she 
answered: " If you do I shall scream. Let 
me alone. You need my help." 

I do not know what I should have done 
with her if one of the sleepers had not just 
then roused up and shouted something at his 
companions. We were discovered ; I could 
see the shouter running toward us, and tug- 
ging at his bow case. 

"There! You see ! Round up your part 
of the band; I '11 take care of these," Pitaki 
cried; and I wheeled my horse away from 
her. There was nothing else to do. She was 
right: I did need her help. 

The horses were hard to start because of 
146 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

their hungry greed for the young pea-vines 
growing so thickly there in the shade of the 
grove. We dashed at this one and that one, 
daihng them with the ends of the bridle 
ropes and shouting at them, and nearer and 
nearer to us came the war party. One of the 
horses, a big, fat gray, just would not move 
on more than a few steps at a time. I could 
not chance even one falling into the hands of 
those men, now coming so close, so I drew 
my rifle from my belt and shot it. Down 
it went. The loud boom of the weapon 
startled the others; we shouted and lashed 
and poked at them with rope and rifle and 
they broke into a run just as arrows began 
to whiz about us. An arrow struck and stuck 
in a ham of one of the horses; he gave a 
squeal of pain and charged on past the others 
with powerful leaps, and they took fright 
from him and ran even faster. Straight out 
through the grove we drove them, out on 
the open bottom and turned them down it: 
*' Sister, we are safe, our two old women back 
there, and you and I. But for you I could 
never have rounded up these horses and got 
away with them," I cried. 

" Ha ! I told you that you needed me, but 

147 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

you would not listen, not until you had to/* 
she laughed ; and, ah, how proud of her I felt. 
Bravery ? Girl though she was, she had it as 
much as any warrior of our tribe. 

We looked back. The war party had come 
out of the timber and was still running after 
us, as men will run even though they know 
that the chase is hopeless. Their watcher 
was coming, leaping down the trail to join 
them. " There is no more need for haste, 
but we must not go too slow, we must not 
let them learn that we are trying to draw 
them on," I told Pitaki. 

I hoped that the party would not go back 
into the grove. They did not. When the 
watcher joined them, they all stood and 
talked for a short time, and then took up 
our trail at a steady walk. Without doubt, 
it was their intention to follow us, even to 
the perhaps far-off camp for which they be- 
lieved we were heading. ** Sister, they are 
starting on a trail of which they will never 
see the end," I said. I had already made up 
my mind as to just what we were to do, and 
that was to leave them a trail so dry that 
they could not follow it. I explained just 
where we should go ; that we, and the horses 
148 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

too, would suffer from thirst, and the an- 
swer I got was that if I could stand it, she 
could. 

We went on down the open bottom of 
the valley, in plain sight of the following 
enemy, for some distance, and then drove 
the horses into the river: "Now, drink and 
drink plenty," I told Pitaki, "for this is 
the last water you will see until to-morrow 
night." 

We drank and drank until we could not 
hold another swallow. Then I made Pitaki 
take my leather wrap for a saddle blanket, 
and we started the herd straight out east, 
across the bottom and up the slope of the 
valley. As I had hoped they would do, the 
war party turned out toward the plain when 
they saw us heading for it, in order to 
shorten trail. They had not drank; so much 
more quickly, then, would they begin to 
suffer from want of water. 

The sun was setting as we rode out on 
the plain; then came the night and we saw 
no more of the enemy. But there was a big, 
bright moon, giving light enough for them 
to follow our trail, and we were glad of 
that; they would be encouraged to keep on. 
149 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

All that night we traveled down the high, 
dry plain between the Missouri and the 
Teton, keeping the band of horses 'loping 
and trotting, never allowing them to slow 
up and walk. The wounded horse became 
so lame early in the night that I had to shoot 
him. When daylight came, we stopped and 
rested and allowed the horses to graze, a long 
way from either stream. Pitaki slept, I kept 
watch. There were no buffalo, no antelope 
in sight ; they were all closer in to water, 
and there they would stay until the winter 
snows would permit them to come out to 
this, a winter range; when they could get 
snow they did not care much for water. 

The sun was not high when I wakened 
Pitaki and told her that we must go on. I 
knew that she was tired and sleepy, and al- 
ready in need of water, but she made no 
complaint, and ran and caught her horse 
and bridled him, and was mounted as soon 
as I. 

"Pitaki," I said, "right here, in the late 
afternoon, will come that war party, almost 
choking from want of water and plenty 
tired, and they will come here only to find 
the trail turning off into still more dry coun- 
150 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

try. They will have to leave it and strike 
out for the nearest water, and that is the 
Teton, more than a half-day's walk. Will 
they come back and pick up the trail ? I 
think not. But if they do, they must suffer 
again. Come! Let 's go." 

For a long time we rode straight toward 
the Missouri, and then turned and headed 
for the lower part of Sun River, avoiding 
always the high places on the plain and 
keeping a good watch all around. As the 
sun rose higher and higher, the thirsty 
horses became more and more thirsty and 
more difficult to drive. And we, in the after- 
noon our tongues began to swell; we could 
barely speak; we suffered terribly; Pitaki 
surely more than I, but still she made no 
complaint and I wondered at her strength 
and courage. I was very proud of her. 

It was evening when we neared the river, 
and the horses, smelling the water, made a 
rush and splashed into it and drank and 
drank until they could hold no more; and 
flat down on the edge of the sandy shore we 
drank plenty, and got up and washed our 
faces and wet our hair, and laughed. Said 
Pitaki: "The tired feeling has gone; noth- 

151 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ing troubles me now except that I am very 
hungry." 

" You must remain hungry until to-mor- 
row ; it is now too dark for me to take sure 
aim at anything," I told her. Also, I did 
not care to fire a gun, there might be some 
enemy near us. 

The horses came back out of the water 
and we let them graze until the moon came 
up; then we mounted and drove the band 
across the river, and away out on the bot- 
tom. There we picketed four of them, and 
then lay down for a good night's rest. All 
day long I had been trying to decide what 
to do with the horses. To keep them, to 
herd and water, and picket and hobble some 
of them every day would interfere with my 
search for that for which I wandered, the 
callers' secret; and to have the herd ever 
near us would be dangerous: one might as 
well build a signal smoke to attract the war 
parties wandering through the country, and 
be prepared to die. 

Myself, I did not care much for the 

horses, although the sixteen head, with those 

that I had in No Runner's band, would 

make me as rich as most of the warriors of 

152 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

our tribe. But I did want my sister to have 
them; she had earned them; without her 
brave help I could never have rounded them 
all up and escaped from the war party. I 
concluded to take them all to the Square 
Butte, and there let Suyaki decide what 
should be done with the band. And then I 
fell asleep. 

I am one who can set a certain time to 
awake, and do it. When I opened my eyes 
the position of Seven Persons (the Big Dip- 
per) was halfway between midnight and 
sunrise, the very time I had told myself to 
wake up. I aroused Pitaki, sleeping under a 
near-by clump of giant sage, and we were 
soon mounted and riding out through broken 
country toward the Square Butte. I wanted 
to get far away from the river valley and up 
into the hills before daylight came; I was 
afraid of that valley; the trail runningthrough 
it and over across the Backbone-of-the- 
World was no doubt a favorite one for war 
parties of all tribes. 

Full up with water and good green grass, 
the horses were now easy to herd along; the 
moonlight was so bright that we could see 
far ahead and choose our way. We were 

^S3 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

happy and hungry; the sight now and then 
of a band of buffalo or antelope, or a few 
elk or deer running from our approach, made 
us more and more hungry. Pitaki once asked 
me to shoot into a big band of buffalo and 
put an end to our hunger, but when I an- 
swered that I did not care to build a beacon 
fire in that open country, she said no more. 

When the first light of the rising sun 
turned the high peaks ahead of us all fiery 
red, we saw that we were more than half- 
way from the river to the butte, and in very 
rough country : steep hills, deep coulees, and 
long, rocky ridges. I now took the lead and 
Pitaki drove the horses after me, and I soon 
found the very meat I wanted, a buffalo bull 
of two winters, that was feeding with some 
cows and calves in the bottom of a coulee. 
I got down from my horse and approached 
and killed it, and while I was butchering it 
Pitaki staked out several of the horses, and 
then with her flint and steel and piece of 
punk, built a fire in a small grove of quak- 
ing aspens. Then what a fea§t we had, each 
of us. a half of the tongue, well broiled. 

" I wish that our almost-mother and Ah- 
sanaki had some of it," said Pitaki. 
154 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" They shall soon feast upon boss ribs, and 
liver and tripe. We will take to them all of 
that carcass that a horse can carry," I told 
her. 

So low that I could barely hear her, she 
said : " Perhaps they are not there at the 
butte. It may be that we shall never, never 
find them." 

That was my own thought, but I would 
not say so. " Take courage, you shall soon 
see them," I told her, and we caught up a 
horse and began packing him. First, we 
spread the buffalo hide, hair down, over his 
back from neck to tail. Then, with strings 
of green hide, we tied sides of ribs, and boss 
ribs, and chunks of meat, two pieces at a 
time, and slung them on the hide, the pieces 
well down against the horse's side, the tie 
strings across his back. When all the meat 
was on, we turned the robe over it from 
front and back, and then lashed it in place with 
the two extra drag ropes ; and there it was, a 
big load of fat meat, wrapped in clean, fresh 
hide. We got on our horses and again I took 
the lead and Pitaki herded the loose stock 
close after me. 

The traveling became more and more 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

rough, the hills more and more steep as we 
approached the foot of the butte in the late 
afternoon. Perhaps, though, it was not so 
bad as we, in our anxiety about our almost- 
mother, then thought it was ; we could 
hardly endure the slow ascent of the hills, and 
the winding into and out of the deep coulees. 
At last we approached the steep, boulder- 
strewn slope that ended at the foot of the 
cliff-like wall of the great butte, and stopped 
to let our horses get their wind, and I took 
off my leather wrap and waved it, making 
the sign, " Come to us." 

I waved it but once ; before I could wave 
a second time we saw the two women come 
out from behind a pile of boulders and run 
down the slope toward us. We urged our 
horses up the slope and met them ; they 
were crying ; Pitaki was crying ; myself, I 
almost cried because I was so glad to see 
them, to know that they were safe. They 
just pulled us from our horses and kissed us, 
and gave thanks to the sun for bringing us 
back to them. 

Said Suyaki : " Come, sit you right down 
here, my children, and tell us all about it." 

" No, not now," I answered. " Down 

.56 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

there is a pack-load of fat buffalo meat. We 
will cook and eat some of it, and then hold 
a big council." 

*' Real food ! He has brought us some real 
food," Ahsanaki cried. " Come ! let us go 
and eat some of it." ' 

We went down the hill to the loose horses, 
drove them around to a little creek north 
of the butte, and made camp, and while the 
women cooked meat I told how we had 
made the trail of thirst for the enemy. Su- 
yaki then began what she had to tell by scold- 
ing my sister for running out among the 
horses of the enemy, but I stopped that. "Be 
glad that she did. Had she not helped me, 
we should most likely all have been killed," 
I told her. 

"Well, you should have seen us run, after 
you and the war party chasing you left the 
bottom," Suyaki began. "We waded the 
river, and fear gave strength to our old legs. 
We kept going until night fell, and then lay 
down in a coulee, but we were still so fright- 
ened, and so worried about you two that we 

' A common term for buffalo meat was nitapiwaksin : real, or 
actual food. It was considered far better than the flesh of any 
other game. 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

could n't sleep. It was not until we got away 
up here the next evening that we felt at all 
safe, and then we got another scare that 
lasted all night : just at sunset an old grizzly 
with her two young came along just below 
where we sat, and began turning over rocks 
in search of ants. We could not go higher, 
the rock wall was at our backs; we dared 
not run to right or left for fear she would 
chase us. When night came she was still 
there, close under us. How we suffered, 
thinking that she might come higher and 
discover us. We never slept; all night we 
sat there praying, and trembling with fright. 
Day came, and we saw that she was gone. 
We went down to a spring and drank, and 
hurried back to the foot of the wall, and 
slept all day by turns. And then, oh, how 
glad we were when we saw you coming. 
Children, I really believe that we have 
strong medicine; that the gods favor us: 
great dangers beset our trail and always we 
escape them." 

That reminded me of the buffalo rock. I 
took it from my pouch and told how I had 
found it ; how the retying of my moccasin 
strings had led me to it, and kept me from 

158 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

going out on the cliff in sight of the war 
party ; how the band of antelope rushing 
out from the valley had warned me of dan- 
ger. Both of the old women declared that 
the rock was strong medicine. Suyaki then 
and there attached it firmly to my bear-claw 
necklace. " Wear it there in plain sight on 
your breast ; it is surely a good-luck bringer," 
she said. 

Evening had now come. I picketed four 
of the horses for the night, and then we all 
worked hard building a lodge of poles and 
brush to screen our fire. When it was fin- 
ished, we sat down in comfort and held a 
long council, first as to the horses. I gave 
them all to my sister, and she gave the old 
women each two. Suyaki refused to accept 
any for her very own, saying that whenever 
she wanted to ride we would see that she 
didn't go afoot. We agreed that it was dan- 
gerous for us to keep them, and that they 
were too valuable to let loose, now that we 
had them. It was decided that they should 
be kept hobbled and picketed right there in 
the narrow little valley. The women were 
to take care of them. During the daytime 
they were to sit up at the foot of the rock 

159 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

wall of the butte and watch the country, and 
at night sleep in the brush lodge. Really, 
away up there in rough country, far from 
any trail, there was little danger of their be- 
ing discovered by a war party. 

Then, as to myself; we talked and talked 
far into the night and could not decide what 
I had best do in order to find a way to call 
the buffalo. Long after the others slept, I 
kept thinking about it. Somehow, I had al- 
ways in mind the ancient Crow trap down 
by the river. At last I slept, and my shadow 
went forth from my body upon discovery. 
When it came back, when I awoke in the 
morning, I could not remember much of 
my dream. The plainest part of it was that 
wherever I wandered the Square Butte, the 
big, rock-walled butte towering above us, 
seemed to be calling me, seemed to be moan- 
ing in a voice like deep and heavy far-off 
wind : " Puk-si-put ! Puk-si-put ! Man-i- 
kap-i, puk-si-put ! " (Come! Come! Youth, 
come ! ) 

I told my dream when the others awoke. 
Said Suyaki then : " Heed that call. Go up 
there on top and fast and dream, and we will 
pray for you." 

1 60 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" Yes, do so," my sister cried, "And leave 
your rifle with me. I never have shot it, but 
I know that I can. If I cock it, and sight 
it, and press that finger iron, let me tell you 
that whatever is in front of it is going to 
drop." 

We all laughed : " Keep the weapon, 
then," I told her; and right after our morn- 
ing meal I made ready for my climb. 




CHAPTER VIII 



IN order to reach the top of the Square 
Butte, one has to go around behind it, 
and ascend a steep, rocky ridge rising 
from the slope of the mountains up to its 
summit. It is a long, hard climb; I did not 
arrive at the rough but somewhat level top 
until the middle of the day. I walked out 
to the very edge of the east wall and looked 
down ; so far below me that the horses 
seemed no larger than dogs. I tried to find 
the women and my sister, down at the foot 
162 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

of the cliff, but could not see them ; cached 
as they were in among the fallen rocks, I 
would not be able to see them unless they 
got up and moved. 

Then I looked out at the country, and 
what a sight it was : I could see to the north- 
east the three buttes of the Sweetgrass Hills; 
to the east the Bearpaw Mountains; and off 
to the southeast the long, black timbered 
front of the Highwood Hills. And all in 
between, like long, dark, giant snakes, were 
the valleys and breaks of the Missouri, the 
Teton, and the Marias Rivers; and down 
under me, as it seemed, was the valley of 
Sun River, broad and green and timbered, 
running off to its junction with the Missouri. 
All along it and its near plains were dark 
patches that I knew were buffalo herds; and 
away off along the other rivers were, I also 
knew, herds just as large and plentiful that 
I could not see. How proud I was ; how 
happy I was, looking out upon those broad, 
buffalo - covered plains and the encircling 
mountains, and the great river valleys with 
their deer and elk, to know that they were 
ours, all of them and a hundred times more 
that I could not see, our very own. 
163 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

I sat there a long time, looking off at the 
country, and then I built a little wall of 
rocks at the edge of the cliffs, and back of that 
another wall. There were patches of grass 
on the summit ; I gathered some and made 
a good bed of it between the walls and lay- 
down. The outer wall would keep me from 
rolling off the cliff; the inner would break 
a hard west wind, should one come up. I 
began my fast. I prayed and prayed to my 
medicine, to all the gods, to the great butte 
upon which I lay to give me a dream ; to in 
some way tell me how to call the buffalo. 

So I lay there praying and worrying. The 
sun went on and on toward his island home 
in the far-off salt-water lake. Back of me 
there was the sound of steps; I turned over 
and looked out through a crevice in my lit- 
tle wall, my heart beating fast. Could it be 
that some enemy had followed me away up 
to the top of this butte ? No. It was a lone 
bighorn; an old, old male with immense 
horns. He wandered from one grass patch 
to another, snipping off the seed heads of the 
plants, and ever turning and turning to watch 
all parts of the rocky summit. Off to the 
west rocks rattled, and then four ewes and 
164 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

their young came up along the way that I 
had followed. 

I kept watching the young ones play un- 
til, happening to look off to the south side 
of the summit, I got just a glimpse of some- 
thing dark-colored going behind a rock. I 
watched that place, and soon saw a dark, 
broad, ugly head and whitish-yellow striped 
neck rise up over the top of the rock : it was 
a wolverine, in quest of his evening meal. I 
had no more than made out what it was 
than the young bighorns, in their play, ran 
right under the rock and the wolverine just 
dropped down upon one of them. As it 
blatted, I could hear its neck-bones crack. 
The others ran away and met their mothers 
running toward the rock. They ran nearer 
the little one that was kicking in the grasp 
of the wolverine, and he growled at them ; 
a terrible growl for so small an animal ; it 
almost frightened me; it surely did the 
mothers, for they turned and ran with their 
young westward off the summit, all but the 
mother of the captured little one: she stood 
near by, stamping with her forefeet and 
helplessly watching the wolverine bite and 
maul his prey. 

165 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

The way the wolverine growled, and bit 
and clawed the little one, even after it was 
dead, made me mad. I took my bow and 
arrow and went toward him, and he even 
growled at me and made ready to fight ; and 
oh, how his mean eyes blazed ! 

" There ! Take that ! " I said, and shot an 
arrow deep into his breast. He clawed at it, 
bit at it, and died growling. I looked around. 
The mother bighorn was gone. I picked up 
the little one, torn and limp, and tossed it far 
out from the cliff. Long afterward came up 
the deep whoom ! of it as it struck the slope 
of the butte, far below. 

The Wolverine is a medicine animal. 
Therefore I sharpened my knife and took the 
hide of this one, and threw the carcass from 
the cliff. Then I went back to my bed of 
grass and lay down. I said to myself that this 
was no way to get near the gods ; what with 
worrying about the women below, and be- 
ing disturbed by bighorns and wolverine, I 
could not keep my mind on sacred things. 
I got up and sat on the edge of the cliff as 
the sun went down behind the mountains, 
and saw the women lead and drive the horses 
to water, and take them back to good grass. 
i66 




HE EVEN GROWLED AT ME AND MADE READY 
TO FIGHT 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Then night came and I went back to my bed. 
I was very thirsty, and very much disturbed 
in mind. It was late before I slept, and then 
for only a short time; when I awoke the 
Seven Persons had moved but little from the 
position in which I had last seen them. 

But I had had a dream : I had spoken 
with Square Butte, his spirit, his shadow. 
What he looked like, where was his voice, 
I cannot say. 

As I remembered it, I could hear plainly, 
but could see nothing; it was as though I 
was surrounded with thick fog. I said: "You 
called me and I am here. Have pity on me 
now and tell me that which I so much want 
to know." 

" * You have made a mistake, I did not 
call you, I never called you,' he answered ; 
*but now that you are here I shall help you 
if I can. What is it that you seek?' 

"The way to call buffalo; to decoy them 
to the cliffs," I told him. 

" * Ha ! I know nothing about that,' he said. 
* In the long ago, people chased buffalo over 
the cliff down there in the valley, but I paid 
no attention to them. Why should I ? I am 
not interested in walking, crawling, flying 
169 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

things, creatures of but a few winters. I am 
younger brother of the big mountains over 
there. We live forever. We have enough to 
think about and talk, about without keeping 
watch on the doings of men.' 

"Oh, and I thought that you called me; 
that you would help me," I cried. 

" * I can advise you. I will say this,' he 
told me : * If you want to learn to call buf- 
falo, go down there where it has been done. 
Go there, I say, and watch the buffalo ; 
and fast and pray and maybe you will suc- 
ceed.' " 

It was just after he said that, that I awoke. 
Strangely enough, as he advised me, so had I 
been thinking before I fell asleep. I got out 
of my bed and picked up my bow and arrow 
case and the wolverine skin, and left the 
summit, having no trouble in finding my 
way in the moonlit night. I was not long in 
descending to the little creek, where I drank 
plenty. I passed the horses, most of them 
asleep, and then entered the little grove and 
noiselessly approached the little lodge. Stand- 
ing beside it, I could hear the soft breathing 
of the women as they slept. I lay down 
right where I was and also slept. 
170 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

A loud scream that ended in a laugh 
awakened me. Pitaki had come out of the 
lodge and, seeing me lying beside it, had 
been frightened until she saw, and very 
quickly, who I was. She called the old wo- 
men and they came hurrying out, alarmed 
and asking me to tell them why I was back 
so soon .? If I had discovered a war party ? 
They felt badly when they learned that I 
had not found that which I sought. 

" But I did get good advice, I am going 
down among the buffalo, down there to that 
old Crow trap, and stay there until I learn 
the secret," I told them. 

" Not until you eat plenty, and have a day 
and a night of rest," said Suyaki. 

So I rested there. In the evening we had 
a talk as to what we would do. Suyaki said 
that I could not go alone down into the river 
country; that she and my sister, and old Ah- 
sanaki just could not be left again to worry 
about me, and also that they were afraid 
to have me go far from them. There was 
everywhere danger ; the chance of their be- 
ing found by a war party ; of being attacked 
by a grizzly. 

" If you go with me, the horses must be 
171 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

left here and we may never see them again," 
I said. 

" Oh, brother ! Never mind the horses," 
Pitaki answered. ** Of course, I would like 
to have them, but to be with you, near you, 
is more than all the horses that live. We will 
turn them loose here, and if they are gone 
when we come back, why, then they will 
be gone and I shall not cry about it." 

" We will try to keep the horses, and you 
shall all go with me," I decided, and told 
them to make three broad, smooth-edged 
hobbles. 

Early the next morning I drove the band 
to the very head of the little valley and put 
the hobbles on the three that had proved to 
be the leaders, so adjusting them that they 
would not chafe the skin and cut into the 
flesh. There was fine feed and plenty of 
water in the valley, and I thought that they 
might be content to remain there. Should 
they attempt to leave, they would go west 
toward their home across the mountains, and 
the rock ledges at the head of the valley 
could not be climbed ; unless discovered by 
a war party, I was sure that we should find 
them when we returned. 
172 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

The women had cut the bufFalo meat into 
sheets and partly dried it ; there was enough 
to last us many nights. They divided it mto 
three packs, and I took all my powder and 
ball and my weapons, and the four ropes that 
the horses had been dragging, and we set out 
for the river. In the afternoon we went very 
slowly and kept a good watch all around as 
we approached the rim of the valley, and at 
last looked down into the timbered bottoms. 

Tust above us, and on the far side ot the 
valley, was the old Crow trap. Right under 

us we saw a big grove of cottonwoods in 

which Suyaki proposed we should build a 

little pole-and-brush lodge. 

«* We will remain hidden there while you 

fast, and then wander around on discovery," 

she said. ^ . •, 

" Almost-mother, where is your good 
sense?" I asked. "Why do you want to cache 
right in the path of war parties going up 
and down this valley trail ? True, the trail is 
not right there through the grove, it is out 
on the bottom, and you know as well as I do 
that war parties go into the timber to rest, 
and cook their meat." 

- Well, then, where shall we go ? she asked. 

173 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

"Out in that brush-and-water coulee at 
the mouth of the trap wings," I told her. 
" True, it is not far from the trail, but those 
traveling through here never go out there, 
never see it ; they watch only the valley ahead 
of and behind them, and send their scouts 
from point to point to look out upon the 
plain: but that coulee, near as it is, cannot 
be seen from any point; not even from the 
cliff there above the trap." 

"What you say is all true," Suyaki agreed, 
" but you have forgotten one thing : think 
of the Crow ghosts that wander about over 
there. They are just as much to be feared 
as living enemies; more so, for they come 
in the night, and cannot be seen or heard. 
When they touch a person and put into him 
the disease that is to kill, that touch cannot 
even be felt." 

" Yes. But think how rarely that happens ; 
more people are killed by lightning than by 
enemy ghosts. And, anyhow, I think we are 
safe there from them. Remember that I 
found the buffalo rock over there: what 
better sign of good luck do you want than 
that?" I said. 

"Suyaki, he is right; the coulee is the 

174 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

place for us," Ahsanaki said; "and if there 
be Crow ghosts there, — well, what of it? 
I can speak Crow as well as any Crow. I will 
pray to the Crow gods, and the ghosts will 
think that we are Crows, and so not try to 
harm us." 

"You are both against me. I will do as 
you say, but, oh, I am afraid," said Suyaki. 

And then after a time, she asked: "And 
you, my son, where shall you fast while we 
remain cached in that place of ghosts?" 

I pointed to the cliff on our side of the 
valley, and opposite the cliff of the buffalo 
trap : " See that cottonwood tree growing at 
the upper edge of the rock wall?" I asked 
her. "Well, help me build a scaffold in it, 
and make a good bed, and there I shall fast." 

" But any passing war party will see you 
there," my sister cried. 

" Yes. And believe that what they see is 
a burial scaffold, and keep as far away from 
it as they can," I answered. 

" But why not somewhere else?" Suyaki 
wanted to know. 

" For good reason. That is a medicine 
place; there I shall be right in sight of the 
trap; and ever since I was there the other 

175 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

day something has seemed to keep urging 
me back to it," I explained. 

The day was coming to a close. I soon 
sent the women down into the grove to pre- 
pare our evening meal, and myself kept 
watch upon the country until night fell. 
Then I joined them, and ate a small piece 
of roasted meat. As soon as the moon came 
up, we all took what dead poles we could 
carry and went up on the plain, and then 
along the rim of the valley to the cliff. The 
upper part of it was a very steep, rough slant 
down to the wall face, and at the foot of 
that was the river, just there very deep. The 
lone tree was short-bodied and thick-limbed, 
and stood on the slant just above the wall 
and leaning well out over it, its roots fast in 
cracks in the rock from which water was 
oozing. The slant down to it was so very 
steep that I let my sister down first at the 
end of a rope, and followed her, and when 
we were safe at the foot of the tree the others 
let down to us, with ropes, two or three poles 
at a time. I then got into the tree and Pitaki 
passed me the poles as fast as I could lay and 
lash them to two strong limbs. It was dan- 
gerous work for her, for if she should slip 

176 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

off she would go into the water far below. As 
soon as the scaffold was laid, the old women 
let down bundles of grass, and I spread that 
on the poles for my bed. When all was fin- 
ished, I had the women keep a tight rope 
on my sister while she scrambled up to them, 
and then I went up and we returned to the 
grove. 

"Now, then," said I, "cook meat, you 
women. Cook enough to last you four or 
five days, and then I shall take you to your 
hiding place." 

They built up a fire and roasted a lot of 
the nearly-dried meat, while I stood watch. 
I knew we were taking a risk by keeping 
a fire going there, but we had to do it. We 
were in luck ; nothing disturbed us, and 
near daybreak we went up on the plain by 
the trail at the east end of the buffalo-trap 
cliff. 

As we passed along between the wings 
in the gray light of the breaking day, the 
w^omen kept bunched up close to my heels. 
Said Ahsanaki: "Oh, lam afraid. Herein 
the long ago came rushing the Crow stam- 
peders. Right through here they drove the 
herds to the cliff and over it; of course th" 



.. .., e 

177 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

ghosts of some of them are ever here about 
to do what harm they can to us, their ene- 
mies." 

" Ai ! They can never get over the loss 
of this country, this trap. Of course, their 
shadows gather here to seek revenge upon 
us," Suyaki muttered. 

"But see! The day has come, and with 
its light their power fails," my sister told 
them. 

But I knew that she feared the place as 
much as they did. She just would not own 
it, and did her best to cheer them. 

Out in the coulee beyond the wings was a 
large herd of buffalo. We were close upon 
them before they took fright and ran. The 
place smelled rankly of them. The willow 
thickets along the water holes were trampled 
and broken, and some of the holes in which 
the bulls had wallowed were more mud than 
water. We went up some distance before we 
found a pool of good water and a clump of 
willows big enough to hide in. 

" Now, listen ! " I told the women. " Keep 
close in this brush during the daytime. Buf- 
falo will come, of course, but do not frighten 
them away unless you are obliged to do so, 

178 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

unless you fear that they may stampede 
through the brush and trample you. i teel 
that you are safe here, so I shall not worry 
about you, and do you not worry about me 
even if I do not return in five days : I shall 
lie on that scaffold until I get a medicine 
dream, or until I can fast no longer. So, 
now I leave you." „ 

" Not until you have given me your ritle, 
said my sister. " A bear may come wander- 
ing along here, and he shall not kill usif I 
can shoot straight enough to stop him. 

I handed her the rifle and my pack ot 
ammunition, and started back to the river 
I crossed it, and in the grove where we had 
cooked the supply of meat I came upon a 
human skull that had dropped from an old 
and rotted tree-burial scaffold. " Maybe you 
are the head of Sees Black," I said to it. 
" Maybe your now empty brain cup once 
held the caller's secret." 

As I stood looking at it, a strange thought 
came to me; I felt as though something 
was telling me to take the sku 1 to the scaf- 
fold and dream beside it. I looked all 
around; listened for a voice; but all was 
quiet; not even a tree leaf trembled; not a 



Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 

living creature was in sight, not even a bird. 
I picked up the skull and went on. 

The sun was up when I climbed to the 
rim of the plain and went on to the edge of 
the cliff. I sat there a long time watching 
for any signs of the enemy, and saw none. 
I had left there our longest rope, and now 
fastening one end of it to a big rock half- 
buried in the ground, I let myself down to 
the tree, and climbed up on to the scaffold; 
there I laid my bow and arrow case on one 
side of the narrow grass bed, and the skull 
on the other side, and lay down and drew 
my leather wrap over me. I reached out 
then and placed my hand on the skull : 
" Ancient one, help me," I prayed. " Tell 
me! Oh, tell me if you know it, the caller's 
secret." 

And all the time I prayed I knew that I 
was taking an awful chance : were this the 
skull of a Crow, then death in some form 
was coming swift upon me. 

I prayed steadily all that day and far into 
the night, calling upon all the gods, and 
my medicine, and the shadow head beside 
me, to grant that which I asked; to give 
me a revealing dream ; and then I slept. 
1 80 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

When I awoke in the morning, my first 
thought was that I had not dreamed. But 
I felt well ; thirsty and hungry but well 
and strong. In a measure, my fear of the 
skull went from me : *' Ancient one, you 
are my friend; oh, tell me that which I want 
to know," I prayed. 

I raised up and from the edge of the 
scaffold looked off into the valley, still in 
the shadow of early morning. A small herd 
of buffalo was grazing under the cliff from 
which so many of their kind had jumped 
to death in days gone by. Two big wolves 
were prowling close to them, sometimes 
walking slowly round and round the band, 
and sometimes sitting on their haunches and 
watching and waiting for any calf that 
might stray out from the protection of the 
old ones. I was glad to see them all there, 
a good sign that no war party was near. 

Night came. I was now suffering from 
thirst, but the desire for food had left me. 
I slept and my shadow went forth on dis- 
covery. When it came back, when I awoke, 
I remembered everything : in my shadow, 
my dream wandering, I had met the duck 
hawk and asked him to help me, and he 
i8i 



Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 

had answered: " Go across there to that 
ancient trap, and thereabout, and watch 
the buffalo, and what you want shall come 
to you. Yes ! You shall learn to decoy the 
buffalo to the trap as surely as I dart down 
through the air and seize my prey." 

Oh, how happy I was ! I looked up at 
the Seven Persons and saw that they had 
swung around to midnight time. " I cannot 
wait until morning ; I shall go now and tell 
my sister and my almost-mothers that I 
have had my dream," I said. But before I 
could make a move, I again went fast to 
sleep. I must have become very tired dur- 
ing my shadow wanderings. 

When I awoke again day had come, I felt 
very cold, and found that in my sleep I had 
kicked off my leather wrap ; it was hanging 
down from the scaffold and except that my 
left leg still held fast a corner, it would have 
dropped down into the river. I reached out 
and pulled it up, and heard some one shout 
below. What do you think I saw when I 
cautiously looked down from the edge of 
my resting-place ? 




CHAPTER IX 



A MAN was pointing straight up at my 
dreaming-place and saying some- 
thing to five others who stood close 
behind him. He had seen my wrap, seen it 
drawn up on the scaffold, and was no doubt 
telling his companions that dead persons do 
not draw up their coverings. 

"They have me trapped," I said to my- 
self. " If they come up to see what is in this 
tree, I cannot escape from them." 

As I said it they separated, three running 
down the shore and three up. I saw them 
cross the river above and below the cliff, 
where the water was not deep, and then they 

183 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

went out of sight. That they would soon ap- 
pear on the cliff above me and begin shoot- 
ing, and throwing rocks, was certain. My one 
chance to escape from them was to drop from 
my tree into the river, and that was a very 
risky chance, I thought ; the fall from such 
a height would probably kill me. 

Then hope suddenly came to me: there 
were the lashings of my scaffold, a rope at 
each end of it. I slung my bow and arrow case 
on my back and cast the skull away. " Go," 
I said. ** I am sorry to have to throw you, 
ghost head, for you have been good medi- 
cine to me." And I heard it splash into the 
water far below. 

Never did any one work faster than I as I 
freed those ropes from poles and tree limbs. I 
then tied an end of one to the tree and, mak- 
ing one rope of both, grasped it with my wrap 
to keep my hands from burning and slid 
slowly down the cliff wall. Upon reaching 
the very end of the rope, I was still a long 
way above the water, all of the height of a 
big pine tree, but there was just one thing to 
do and I did it: I swung out from the cliff 
and let go the rope and dropped, and struck 
the water with a big splash. Down, down 
184 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

I went into it, pawing with both hands, but 
still going down until I thought that I must 
drown. Then I began to rise, up from black 
darkness toward the light of day, and what 
relief I felt as my head cleared the water and 
I drew in a long breath! I made no attempt 
to swim ; I just drifted with the current and 
used my arms only enough to keep my face, 
my eyes and nose and mouth, above the sur- 
face. And as I drifted, I kept watching the 
cliff above me, and the lone tree that I had 
left. I could plainly see the scaffold, but I 
knew that it could not be seen from above 
because of its thick screen of leaved boughs. 

I wondered what the enemy would do 
when they arrived at the slant above it and 
found the rope dangling from the half-buried 
boulder. I had not long to wait to know, for a 
shower of big rocks suddenly crashed into the 
tree and came splashing into the river, and I 
heard the throwers raise their war cry. I had 
heard it before: it was the war cry of the 
Assiniboines. 

I could not see the enemy nor could they 

see me ; they were on the upper edge of the 

slant from the cliff up to the plain, and I was 

drifting so close to the wall that I could reach 

i8j 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

out and touch it. They continued shouting 
and throwing and rolling down the big rocks, 
and I drifted faster and faster as I neared the 
rapids at the lower end of the cliff. I had 
made up my mind just what to do. I kept 
close in to shore, and after clearing the cliff 
watched for the place where the lower three 
of the enemy had come out from the river. 
I soon saw it ahead of me, the sand and white 
stones of the shore still wet where the water 
had dripped upon them. I went out in the 
enemy's tracks, and into the near brush, and 
from that down into the big grove where, 
three nights back, the women had roasted 
their supply of meat. I could still hear the 
stones crashing down, and the cries of the 
enemy ; they had not seen me ; they would 
never see me. More than ever before, I felt 
that my medicine was strong, that the gods 
were with me, that I was to learn that which 
I so much wanted to know, the caller's secret. 
I do not know how long the war party kept 
hurling rocks into my dream tree before they 
discovered that their work was all for noth- 
ing. I went away down through the grove 
and crawled under a thick growth of rose 
brush in the open bottom. I had lost my 
i86 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

leather wrap. My bowstring was soaked with 
water and useless. I laid both bow and ar- 
rows on top of the brush to dry. 

That was a long day to me. When I 
plunged into the river and drifted down it, 
I drank, of course, all the water I could hold 
at the time ; but that was not enough to 
quench my several-days-old thirst. I was 
faint and weak from want of food, too, and I 
worried not a little about my women back in 
the coulee. If they remained cached in the 
brush, as I had told them to do, all would be 
well with them ; but if they should go out 
from it and wander about, there was a chance 
of their being discovered by the enemy. 

As soon as my bow was dry I strung it, 
and was ready to fight, if fight I must. My 
plan, however, was to get up and run the 
instant that I was sure the enemy discovered 
me in my hiding-place. Luck was with me; 
in the middle of the day I saw them sneak- 
ing down along the edge of the grove and 
they came clear down to the point of it, never 
once showing themselves in the open bot- 
tom. They had not found my trail, nor had 
I intended that they should ; on my way out 
from the river I had not once stepped in 

187 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the well-worn and dusty game trails that ran 
everywhere through the timber. 

How glad I was when night came and I 
could leave my hiding-place. I had no idea 
where the war party was, whether still in the 
grove or gone on their way up or down the 
river in quest of the camp of some enemy. 
I suspected, however, that they were lurking 
somewhere near in hope of finding the lone 
enemy that they had driven from his dream 
tree. So it was that, in the black darkness 
before the moon came up, I stole through 
the open bottom to the river and, holding 
my bow case high above my head, swam 
and waded it. I went on through the bottom 
beyond and up on the plain, and around to 
the place where I had left the women. All 
the way good luck was with me: I did not 
see or frighten a single band of game, and 
soon after the moon rose I approached the 
clump of willows by the little pool of good 
water, where I hoped the women were 
safely sleeping. 

"Pitaki! Almost-mothers! Are you there?" 
I called, and at once came Suyaki's answer- 
ing voice: "We are here, my son." 

I joined them ; they sprang up and kissed 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

me, and all three asked : *' Your leather wrap ! 
— where is it?" 

I sat right down with them and told all 
that had happened to me since I had left 
them, talked as fast as I could between bites 
of the roasted meat that my sister handed 
me from time to time; and as I talked I 
began to shiver, for the night was cold, and 
my clothing wet. Suyaki made me take her 
wrap. " Keep it, Ahsanaki and I can get 
along with one wrap," she said. 

When I had finished all that I had to 
tell, Suyaki made a little talk. "It is plain 
enough that the gods are with us," she be- 
gan. " Look back at our trail since we 
parted from our people, and see the dangers 
that have beset us ; we have always escaped 
them. My son, there is no doubt that your 
medicine is strong; you have a shadow talk 
with Square Butte, yonder, and it sends you 
down here, where duck hawk tells you what 
to do. My son, we do not love this place ; 
we fear it ; but though a hundred Crow 
ghosts guard this ancient trap of theirs, we 
shall stay with you here until you learn the 
great secret." 

" We must think hard and plan just what 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

is best for us to do," I told her; and then we 
all lay down and slept well until morning. 

When I awoke my first thought was of 
the enemy : had they gone, or were they still 
hiding somewhere down by the river with 
the hope of getting the scalp of the lone 
faster that they had driven from the cliff? I 
hoped that they had gone their way, for we 
had only enough meat for the morning meal 
and I dared not kill any while they were 
anywhere near us. The others soon awoke. 
Suyaki divided the meat, giving me much 
the largest portion, and we ate slowly and 
had our talk. 

I learned that during the time I was away 
from them two different herds of buffalo 
had come in to near-by pools to drink, and 
had got the wind of them and gone rushing 
back on the plains. That was bad. Some 
enemy might have come out to learn what 
had frightened them. Also, it was some- 
where here that duck hawk had told me I 
was to learn the secret ; I could not expect 
to learn it if the herds were to be continu- 
ally frightened when they came to drink : we 
just had to find some other place to camp. 

We decided to take no chances on being 
190 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

discovered by the war party, and remain 
right where we were until night. Not long 
after sunrise a big herd of buffalo came into 
the coulee to the west of us, and in the shel- 
ter of cutbanks and brush I crept so near the 
lower edge of it that I could see the eyes of 
some of the animals. The herd was made 
up of cows and calves, and bulls up to two 
winters of age ; the old bulls were still off 
by themselves, alone, and in bands of various 
sizes. The little red calves were some of 
them just born, and some perhaps a moon 
old. Those able to run about could not keep 
still ; they chased one another all through the 
herd, and butted heads together, and kept 
their mothers running after them for fear 
that they would stray outside the edge of 
the herd and become lost, or be seized by 
the wolves that were ever watching for a 
chance to seize them. 

I lay there all the morning watching that 
herd, and trying to reason what I could do 
to make them all start chasing me instead 
of running away, should I attempt to call 
them. Over and over I asked myself what 
Little Otter had done to decoy the herd. I 
had seen all his actions, but I had not heard 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

his call, and that was, no doubt, the secret 
of his success. 

In the afternoon we saw a very large herd 
of buffalo slowly grazing to the very spot in 
which we lay. The women were asleep. I 
aroused them. " Come," I said, ** we have 
to get out of here ; we must not alarm that 
herd. I want them to keep coming here so 
that I can try to call them." 

It did not take us long to gather up our 
things and crawl through the brush to a safe 
position between the wings of the ancient 
trap. The two old women did not like to 
remain there ; they talked about all the ghosts 
they had ever heard of, and Ahsanaki prayed 
in the Crow language that the Crow ghosts 
wandering there might not harm us. My 
sister told me that she was not afraid of them. 
" You have strong medicine. I feel safe 
enough when I am with you," she said. 

When the sun came close down to the 
peaks of the big mountains, I told the wo- 
men to remain where they were until I re- 
turned, and leaving my bow and arrows, and 
taking my rifle and powder and balls, I 
left them, to have a look at the valley. As I 
crept between the wings toward the cliif, 
192 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

whom should I see but duck hawk flying laz- 
ily above me and toward the river. '* Ha ! 
There you are, sure seizer of food," I said, 
" and here am I. Do not forget that you 
are to help me." 

And when I said that he dived straight 
down toward me, and as suddenly darted up- 
ward and sailed on, all the time loudly chat- 
tering his duck-hawk talk. I could not un- 
derstand, but somehow I sensed it that he 
was telling me to take courage ; that all was 
well. I went on all filled up with happiness. 

Upon nearing the edge of the clifl^, I got 
down on hands and knees and crawled, and 
showed only the top of my head as I looked 
down from it into the valley. All was quiet 
there ; no game in sight, no smoke, no sign 
of enemies. I looked across at the cliff where 
I had had my dream, and could scarcely rec- 
ognize my dream tree standing there at the 
edge of the rock wall : it was almost as bare 
of leaves as any dead one, and some of its 
branches were gone, and some were broken 
and the ends drooped straight down. The 
enemy had hurled showers of rocks into it 
until they could see my scaffold, its poles all 
loosened, and the faster gone. I laughed to 

193 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

think of their surprise when they found that 
they had been outwitted. 

It was well for me that I had come to the 
edge of the cliff so cautiously, like a snake 
crawling upon its prey. Also, when Old 
Man made the world it was well that he 
should have made the cliff higher than the 
one across from me, for there where I had fas- 
tened the rope to the half-buried boulder, a 
watcher was concealed. After the sun went 
down and the valley began to darken with 
night shadows, I was surprised to see a man 
rise up from behind that rock and wave his 
robe. Four times he waved it, and then 
spread it on the rock and sat upon it. I 
looked up the valley and down it, and then 
saw his comrades leave the grove where we 
had roasted meat, and strike out across the 
bottom toward the slope up to the plain. 
They were five ; the watcher made six ; they 
were the very party that I had escaped from. 

Upon climbing to the rim of the plain 
they walked swiftly along it to the cliff and 
stopped and talked with the watcher. Then 
they all went on westward and into and up 
the valley, and I soon lost sight of them in 
the gathering night. But I knew that they 

194 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

were now leaving that part of the country ; 
that they had given up all hope of finding 
me, and were again on their way to raid the 
herds of the across-the-mountains people. 

I went back to the women. " Come, all 
is well. The war party of six has just left 
here," I told them. 

"What? You saw them again?" Suyaki 
asked; and when I explained that their 
watcher had called them from the grove, 
and that they had all gone up the valley, she 
said that it was just another sign that the 
gods were with us. And that was the way I 
felt about it. 

On our way up the valley so many days 
back, I had noticed a small island in the 
river not very far below this trap cliff, and I 
proposed that we go there and make it our 
stopping-place while I tried to call the buf- 
falo. The old women thought that a good 
plan, and we went down to it, taking care 
to wash out our footsteps where we crossed 
the shore sands to the water. The island was 
thickly wooded, in its center a grove of big 
cottonwoods, and along its edge smaller trees 
and a dense growth of willows. It was about 
the safest place we could be in ; war parties 

^95 



Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 

seldom went to islands to hide and rest dur- 
ing the day, unless they were close to a clifF 
or butte from which the watchers could see 
all over the country, and on each side of 
this island the bottoms were wide, and the 
rims of the plain very low. 

We were so very hungry that we did not 
sleep much that night. At the first sign of 
daylight, I took both my bow and arrows 
and my rifle and went to the upper end of 
the island to look for game, and as soon as 
day really came I discovered three bull elk 
in the bottom opposite me on the south 
side of the river. They had ceased feeding 
and were coming to water, and, I hoped, to 
the island to rest. I was right. They all 
drank, and then began wading across that 
part of the river, heading toward a point a 
little below me. There would be no need 
for me to use my rifle and I was glad of that. 
I did not want its telltale boom sounding 
all up and down the valley. I laid it aside, 
and with my bow and a handful of arrows 
ran down through the brush close to the 
place where the bulls would come in. I had 
not long to wait ; one after another they en- 
tered on a narrow game trail, moving their 
196 



Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 

heads this way and that way to protect their 
tender, new-growing horns from trees and 
branches. I was very close to the trail, and 
as the lead bull was passing me, where I 
stood close beside a tree, I let go an arrow 
into his ribs, and put another on the string 
and fired it at the second bull. I fitted a 
third arrow and turned to shoot it at the 
third bull, but he had turned and was al- 
ready half out of sight in the brush below 
the trail. But I knew that I had the other 
two; I could hear them making their last 
kicks in the near-by brush, and by the time 
I got to them they were dead. I called the 
women, and we soon had the big, fat animals 
butchered and cut up, meat enough when 
dried to last us a long time. My sister started 
at once to tan one of the hides, hair on, for 
a wrap for me. 

We built a fire of Cottonwood bark, which 
is almost smokeless, and had a good feast of 
broiled ribs. The old women were all the 
morning cutting the meat into thin sheets to 
dry, and in the afternoon I helped them 
build a good, big lodge of dry poles, and 
bark and grass and small branches, a thick 
covering that would thoroughly conceal our 
197 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

evening fires. We all worked very hard all 
day, getting everything in shape for a long 
stay on the island. 

On the next day I was to begin watching 
the buffalo up in the vicinity of the trap, as 
duck hawk had told me to do. But that 
evening Pitaki asked me to do something 
that changed my plan. 

" Brother, we have many days ahead of 
us for learning the great secret," she said. 
"Now, I have been thinking about those 
horses you gave me. No doubt they are 
there, but I fear that those you hobbled are 
getting sore legs. Before you begin watch- 
ing the buffalo, why not go up and put the 
hobbles on other horses ? " 

" That is a wise thing to do," I answered. 
" Give me some fresh hobble thongs and I 
will start up there some time before day- 

light." 

It was a long time before sunrise when I 
took my rifle, and some meat, and left the 
island and headed for the Square Butte, which 
looked dim and far-away in the moonlight. 
I walked swiftly and without pause, and at 
midday approached the head of the little 
valley behind it. The horses were well up on 



Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 

a slope south of the creek, and when they 
saw me they snorted and ran, the hobbled 
ones going nearly as fast as those that were 
free. I counted the bunch ; there were but 
fifteen ; one animal was missing, one of the 
four that I had hobbled. Only a few days 
back the herd had been very gentle, and was 
now very wild. I chased them around a long 
time before I could get near enough to catch 
one, and then the others as I wanted them. 
None of the hobbled was injured, but I freed 
them and put the hobbles on other animals, 
and then went hunting for the missing one. 
I soon found him near the creek, half eaten 
and partly covered over with dead grass and 
brush, and some enormous bear tracks in the 
mud near by showed plainly enough w^hat 
had killed him. 

I either had to kill that bear or take the 
horses out of the valley ; if I should leave 
them there all that were hobbled would one 
by one become bear food. I decided to kill 
the bear. Now, with the kind of guns you 
have to-day, guns that shoot many cartridges 
faster than one can count, it is nothing, not 
at all a brave act to hunt big grizzlies. But 
to take aim at one wdth a flintlock gun, 
199 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

knowing that if the shot does not kill there 
will not be time to reload before the bear 
charges — why, in that case, to attack and 
kill one is just the same as attacking and 
killing an Assiniboine or any other enemy. 
I considered a long time what I should do 
before deciding to attack. And then I freshly 
primed my rifle and hid in some willows 
about forty steps from the dead horse, and 
waited for the bear to come. 

He did not appear until sunset, and then, 
big as he was, he made no noise as he came 
out of the brush above the horse. He was of 
body as large as a buffalo cow, but shorter- 
legged, of course. He walked with brave 
steps, never stopping to look for danger as 
would one of his black-furred relatives. Why 
should he ? Never in his life had he seen 
anything to fear. And so he came to the dead 
horse and began to paw away the brush and 
grass with which he had covered it. Pres- 
ently he tore a great chunk of meat from 
one of the hams. As he stood motionless, 
chewing it, I took careful sight at the base 
of his right ear, and fired. He fell right 
where he stood, but it was a long time be- 
fore his life went out. The ball had pierced 
200 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

his brain ; he could not move. But, oh, how 
his big muscles, his whole body quivered 
with his strong will to arise and rend what- 
ever it was that had so painfully stung him ! 
When he was quite dead I gave his body 
to the sun, all but his claws and a narrow 
strip of fur I took from his back, with which 
to wrap the medicine pipe I intended to own 
some day. And then I cooked the meat I 
had brought from the island and ate it and 
went down out of the valley and slept all 
night. I did not get home until the next 
evening. The women were glad when I told 
them that I had killed the horse-killer, and 
my sister said that she wished that she were 
a man, so she could wear its claws. 

" You have the right to wear them," I 
told her. " You took those horses from the 
enemy just as much as I did. You can count 
coup upon them, so take the claws and 
make a necklace of them." 

She did so, and proudly wore them. 
Now began for us what proved to be a 
time of peace, but one of great desire for 
me. War parties no longer prowled up and 
down the valley ; if they did we never saw 
them. Just before daylight of each day, 



20 1 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

sometimes alone and sometimes my sister 
with me, I would go up on the buffalo trap 
cliff, or out to the wide mouth of the trap 
wings, and watch the buffalo, and remain 
there until night, and go home in the dark- 
ness to our little shelter, and food and rest. 

The buffalo were very plentiful and very 
quiet ; the season of their unrest, when the 
bulls charge from herd to herd, and fight, 
and moan, had not yet come. Day after day 
I watched the six or eight or ten herds in 
sight, hoping to see one animal do some- 
thing that would cause all the others in the 
band to run after it, but nothing of the kind 
happened. The nearest approach to it was 
when a calf would stray far enough from the 
mothers for the wolves to chase, and some- 
times seize it. More than once I had seen 
a herd suddenly start off running when I 
knew that they had not been frightened by 
hunters. " What caused them to run ? What 
can I do to make a herd chase me ?" I kept 
asking myself, and could find no answer. 

So the days passed, uselessly and all too 

swiftly. We had kept sure count of them, 

either my sister or I each night cutting a 

new crease in my ramrod. And every few 

202 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

nights, to make sure that we had not for- 
gotten, we counted the creases; so many- 
days had gone, so many were to come, be- 
fore we should meet our people and the Flat 
Heads at the mouth of the river. As the 
remaining days became fewer and fewer, I 
prayed harder and harder to the gods, to my 
medicines, duck hawk especially, in some 
way to show me how to decoy a herd. We 
all prayed for that. We had long since sac- 
rificed everything that we had worth giving; 
we could now only pray the gods to favor us, 
to grant my request. 

On the evening that I cut the forty-fifth 
notch in the ramrod, we all had heavy hearts. 
There remained but four or five days before 
the coming of our people, and the way to 
call the buffalo was still a secret unrevealed. 
I felt that I could not meet them until I 
knew it. We all prayed harder than ever for 
help that night, and after I lay down I once 
more begged duck hawk to remember his 
promise. 

The next morning, as usual, we had some 

fresh roasted meat long before daylight, and 

then Pitaki and I went up on the buffalo 

trap cliff for another day of herd watching. 

203 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

When daylight came, we saw that two more 
herds had come close in during the night, 
making ten herds that we could see from 
where we lay on the rise of ground between 
the cliff and the coulee at the mouth of the 
wings. We got up and went to the edge of 
the cliff for a look at the valley ; if any war 
party was there we wanted to know it. But 
no. All was quiet, and another herd of buf- 
falo, a very large one, was in the bottom 
just above the cliff, and moving slowly 
across to the river for water. The day was 
beginning just as the other days of watching 
had begun. The herds would graze, and 
rest, and graze again, and go to water once 
or twice, and nothing would happen. I was 
so sure that I was not to learn the secret 
that I felt sick. " You watch for a time," 
I told my sister, and I lay down and cov- 
ered myself with the elkskin wrap that the 
women had tanned for me. 

I slept. In my dream duck hawk ap- 
peared, sailing around and around above me, 
and as I called to him Pitaki roughly shook 
me. " Awake ! See the buffalo ! Something 
is happening!" she cried. 




CHAPTER X 

I SPRANG to my feet and looked down 
where she pointed : the herd of buffalo 
was scattered all along the river edge, 
and some were standing in the water, and 
one, a cow, had left them and was running 
back across the bottom. Four or five of the 
herd, standing at the top of the river-bank, 
were staring after her, and first one and then 
another suddenly broke into a lope and 
started to follow. The sound of their going 
startled the whole herd, and out it came 
from the river with a rush on the trail of 
the lone cow and the four or five behind 
her. Faster and faster they all went across 
205 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

the bottom, and more slowly up the slope 
beyond the clifF, and faster again out across 
the plain and over the rise of ground, where 
we lost sight of them. 

"There! What think you of that?" Pi- 
taki asked. 

" The cow suddenly remembered that she 
had left her calf somewhere out there," I 
told her. " Perhaps she cached it, and for- 
got to arouse it when they all started for the 
river. And then she thought of its enemies, 
the wolves and coyotes, and went as fast as 
she could go to rescue it from them." 

" Yes, that must be why she went so sud- 
denly, so swiftly," Pitaki agreed. 

I lay down again beside her and fell to 
thinking about what we had seen. "Sister," I 
said, " if I could only have the power that our 
first fathers had, I could call the buffalo any- 
where at any time ; I would change myself 
into a cow, and pretend that I had lost my 
calf, and suddenly leave the herd in search 
of it, and they would all follow me." 

And then, as quick as a lightning flash, 

it came to me that my prayers, my sacrifices, 

were answered. This was the way duck hawk 

had taken to show me the secret. All I had 

206 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

to do was to approach the buffalo on horse- 
back, and then lie close on its back and cover 
myself with a buffalo robe and start running 
away from them, and they would follow me. 

*' Sister ! " I cried, *' I see it all : I can be 
almost-a-buffalo, enough like a buffalo to 
decoy a herd. Come! Let us go home." 

As we went I told her what I proposed to 
do. And when we came to the old women, 
sitting in the shade of a big cotton-wood 
near the little lodge, I told them what we 
had seen and all that I would do. And 
when I finished they both sprang up and 
hugged and kissed me, and cried, and Suyaki 
said that we were at last to be paid for our 
wandering, and praying, and sacrificing. 
And then she lifted her hands and cried out 
to the sun : " I am old ; I am near the time 
when I must go to the Sand Hills, but, oh, 
protect me! Keep life in me that I may at 
least see my son decoy one herd of buffalo 
for the people." 

" Of course you will live to see him do it. 
Not only one, but many herds," Ahsanaki 
told her, and she began to sing softly as the 
two of them made a fresh fire and set some 
meat to roast. 

207 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

As the time was so short to the day of the 
coming of the two tribes, I decided to start 
right out after the horses, and upon my re- 
turn try to decoy a herd of buffalo with one 
of them. I left the island after we finished 
eating, taking with me some of the roast 
meat, and my rifle and the one rope that we 
had. I told the women to make some bridle 
ropes of the remaining elk hide, so that we 
could all ride down to the place of meeting 
of the tribes. 

I did not reach the little valley behind 
Square Butte until late that night, too late to 
find the horses. I slept until daylight and 
then going out in the open saw them high 
up on a grassy slope of the butte, and 
climbed to them. Three of the four I had 
hobbled were free, having worn out their 
rawhide leg thongs. I easily caught the 
fourth one, and bridled him with my rope, 
and cut loose his hobbles. Then I ate some 
meat and, mounting, headed the herd down 
for the river. All of the animals were very 
fat and full of life, and I had no trouble 
with them ; they were more than willing to 
keep ahead of me. 

In the afternoon, when not far from the 
208 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

river, I topped a high ridge from which I 
got a good view of the valley for a long dis- 
tance above our island. I held my horse 
there for some time, looking down into it, 
and at the plains on either side, and was 
about to go on when a long, dark line of 
moving objects began to cross the upper- 
most of the bottoms that I could see. Like 
a huge snake it came steadily on, and the 
head disappeared in a grove before the tail 
end came out from the grove at the farther 
end of the bottom. There was no mistaking 
what it was : a traveling tribe of people. 
The Flat Heads were coming to the appointed 
meeting-place days before the set time for 
them to be there. 

My first thought was that I was glad they 
had come, for we should no longer be in 
danger of attack by war parties. But on sec- 
ond thought I saw that their coming would 
likely spoil my plan to try to decoy a herd 
of buffalo down at the ancient Crow trap. 
When I sensed that, I rode the rest of the 
way to the island as fast as I could drive the 
loose stock ahead of me. " Head off the band," 
I called out to the women. " Bring me your 
ropes, one of you, and hold the band in 
209 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

right here." They did as I told them, and 
with my long rope I soon caught a horse for 
each one, and a fresh horse, a small, lively 
dark-brown animal, for myself. Then I told 
them of the coming of the Flat Heads, and 
that they must be stopped, or told to make 
a big circle out on the plain south of the 
buffalo trap cliff, for I wanted the buffalo 
herds about it left undisturbed. 

"And now," I said, *' pack up and hurry 
to meet them and give them my message. 
I will go with you a part of the way." 

Suyaki laughed : '* He tells us to pack up," 
she said, "when the only thing we have to 
take with us is my brass kettle. We ate the 
last of the dried elk meat this morning, my 
son." 

"Never mind," I told her, "the Flat 
Heads will feed you. I shall kill meat for 
you soon. Come ! we must go ! " 

I rode with them through four or five of 
the long bottoms above the trap cliff, and 
then they went on with the horses to turn 
off the Flat Heads, and I rode back down 
the valley. But I had forgotten something; 
I turned and called to my sister, and asked 
her to give me her buffalo robe wrap in 

2IO 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

place of my elk leather one. She handed it 
over, and said that she was going back with 
me ; that she just had to see me call the buf- 
falo. 

** Come on, then, and see me fail," I an- 
swered. 

" But you are not to fail ! " she cried, " and 
oh, how proud I am going to be: Sister of 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo, Bringer of Plenty." 

" Let us begin praying right now that it 
may all be as you say," I told her, and we 
prayed all the way back to the foot of the cliff. 

The sun was near setting when I tied Pi- 
taki's horse to a log of the old trap, and then 
leading mine, we went up on the plain by 
the lower trail, and out between the wings 
toward the coulee of water holes. " Sister," 
I said, "a thought that has been long with 
me is again in my mind. I once heard Four 
Horns say that if one could only call buf- 
falo on horseback, instead of afoot, he would 
be in no danger from them. No, I have 
never forgotten that. I see now that I have 
right along been hoping to do it. And now, 
right now, if a herd is in the right place out 
there, we are going to know if it can be 
done." 

211 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

My sister said nothing to that. I looked 
at her and saw that she was praying again. 

We soon came to the rise of ground be- 
tween the cHfF and the coulee and, looking 
out from it, saw a small herd of buffalo on 
the far side of the coulee, and right opposite 
the mouth of the wings. They were far 
enough away to suit my purpose; I could 
ride down into the coulee without their no- 
ticing it. I told my sister to hold my rifle 
and remain right where she was, and got onto 
my horse and went on. 

As I have said before, there is one little 
ridge after another from the coulee out on 
the plain, each one a little higher than the 
other until the level of the country is at- 
tained. These one by one gave me shelter 
until I at last sighted the buffalo ahead, at 
just the right distance from me, I thought. 
I then covered myself with my sister's robe, 
hair side out and, lying as flat on my horse's 
back as I could, I went slowly nearer and 
nearer until some of the buffalo raised their 
heads and stared at me. The instant they did 
that, I turned my horse and hung to his 
mane with my bridle hand and, reaching 
down, tickled him between the hind legs 

212 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

with a switch I carried in the other hand. 
He began at once to run and kick up his 
heels, and soon, looking back, I saw that the 
herd of buffalo was coming after me. 

Was I glad ? That was the happiest feel- 
ing, just then, that I had ever had. I wanted 
to shout thanks to the gods; to sing; but I 
dared not do it. I rode straight down across 
the little ridges and into the coulee, and 
across it into the mouth of the wings, the buf- 
falo ever gaining upon me, because in my flat 
position on the horse's back I could not make 
him go very fast. But as soon as the buffalo 
came far enough into the mouth of the wings 
to have stampeded them on to the cliff, had 
people been hidden along the rock piles, I 
straightened up and rode, yelling and wav- 
ing my robe, out through the lower wing. 
The herd swerved on and passed through 
the other wing and on westward across the 
plain. I then turned again and rode to my 
sister, who was running and dancing toward 
me, and shouting : "You did it ! You did it ! 
Oh, brother! They followed you." And she 
made me dismount so she could kiss me. 
We were both so excited and happy that we 
hardly knew what we were doing or saying. 
213 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

We went on down the trail to the old trap, 
and Pitaki got on her horse, and we rode up 
the valley in search of the Flat Heads. They 
had not passed on south around us, so we 
knew that they were somewhere up there. 

It was long after dark when we sighted 
the dull-red glow of their lodges, pitched 
along the edge of a big grove. We rode into 
the camp and asked several persons where 
our two old women were before finding one 
that understood us. A number of our Pi- 
kuni-Blackfeet women were married to Flat 
Heads, and their children, and most of the 
husbands, spoke our language well. 

It was a woman of our tribe that led us 
to those we sought ; the Flat Head chief 
had taken them into his lodge. They heard 
us before it and came running out, Suyaki 
crying : " How is it ? Did you call them ? " 

*'Oh, he did! He did! A whole herd 
followed him into the wings ! " my sister an- 
swered, and then all three grabbed me and 
hugged me, and cried and shouted praise to 
the gods for their goodness to me. 

A great crowd surrounded us. The old 
chief came out and greeted me in my own 
language, and asked : " Do I hear right ? Is 
214 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

it so that you have on horseback decoyed a 
herd of bufFalo?" 

" It is true. I did it this day," I answered. 

He took me by the arm and led me to 
the doorway of his lodge. " Enter ! Enter ! 
Medicine youth, my lodge is your lodge," 
he told me. 

And I went in and he made me take the 
seat of honor at his side, on his own couch 
at the back of the lodge. Other chiefs and 
warriors crowded in until the lodge would 
hold no more. Women placed meat and 
dried camas before me, but I was too excited 
to eat ; the Flat Heads were too impatient to 
hear all about it to let me eat. I pushed the 
dish aside and told them how I had actually 
on horseback decoyed a herd of buffalo into 
the mouth of the wings of the old Crow 
trap below. They clapped hands to mouths 
and cried out in surprise that I had done 
such a thing, and said that my medicine must 
be strong. And then they talked of other 
things ; gave me the news of their country ; 
asked if I thought my people would be on 
time at the mouth of the river; but always 
the talk came back to my calling of the 
buffalo. 

215 



Apadk, CUfcr of BoUo 

Snd Ac chief: «Mxiise toq viD call ai 
kcvd of liililii Ibr v^ Few of nj people 
woadccral s^^i^ m. over of 
vcr tfae cfiCiaio the trqiu I 

i^ and ok, I ^ wsst tc sec it 




we cr^cfidE 
be sU ID ]»«: tke 
cadf Bcal the lodr=? 



tTTTL ^^ 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

feet tribes. Your hunting-ground is so large 
that one must travel davs to cross it. You 
have game of all kinds, and so plentiful that 
from summer to summer you can never use 
one out of ten of those that are born.'* 

I 'was glad that I belonged on the plains, 
and not in the forests of the Flat Heads. But 
they were not poor, although they had not 
buffalo and antelope; they had all other 
kinds of game, and they were rich in horses. 

Well, we went on down the valley and 
soon ioined the long column of riders, they 
having come into it some distance below the 
trap. As I rode with the chief to take the 
lead, I noticed that his people had heeded 
the request of our chiefs : their horses were 
well loaded with sacks of dried cam as and 
bitterroot, and many a roll of finely tanned 
deer and elkskin. 

We arrived at the mouth of Sun River 
some time before sunset, and I rode into the 
place of our cache, and was glad to find that 
it had not been disturbed. My sister and the 
old women soon joined me, and got out the 
things, and as night came we once more were 
comfortable in our own lodge, with its soft 
robe couches and pleasant Uttle fire. But we 
217 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

were not allowed to eat in it that night ; the 
chief called me to a feast, and the women's 
friends entertained them, and again it was 
very late before we all got home and went to 
sleep. 

At noon the next day some of the Flat 
Head watchers came in from the rim of the 
plain and reported that the Pikuni were in 
sight. The news spread through camp and 
men and women and children hurried to get 
into their best clothes. Then the men got on 
their horses, I with them, and we went out 
to meet the Pikuni chiefs and warriors. 

It was not until evening that I had a 
chance to talk with No Runner. We had 
met earlier and he had pointed to my horses, 
all of them with his loose stock, and said that 
none were lost. Now, when I came into his 
lodge he cried out: "Welcome, Apauk, 
Bringer of Plenty. Your sister and Suyaki 
have told me all about it. I am proud of 
you." 

I answered what I had been thinking all 
day : " I did it once, but maybe I can never 
call the buffalo again. I am scared when I 
think of trying it." 

** Now, don't be an afraid heart," he said. 
218 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

" Of course you can do it again. Tell me all 
about it, everything that has happened to you 
since we parted here two moons ago." 

I had no sooner finished my story than 
there came a call for us to go to Lone Walk- 
er's lodge, where we found the Flat Head 
chief and a few of the lesser chiefs of both 
tribes. There I had to repeat how I had on 
horseback called the buffalo, and while I 
talked every one listened intently, and the 
pipe that was going the rounds when I started 
was smoked out, and Lone Walker forgot to 
refill it. 

When I stopped talking, having told how 
the buffalo had followed me into the wings 
of the old Crow trap, I could see that some 
of the listeners could hardly believe that what 
they had heard could be true. That made me 
somewhat angry, and I cried out : ** Give 
me the chance to do it, and I will prove to 
you all that 1 can call the buffalo." 

"My son, you shall have that chance," 
Lone Walker answered. "We will all rest 
here for two nights, and then move up near 
the old trap and repair it, and you shall fill it 
with buffalo for us." 

Soon after that I went home, but I could 
219 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

not sleep; I was afraid; I wished that I had 
not made that offer. What if I should fail to 
decoy the buffalo into the wings? If I did 
fail, I felt I could never again look any of 
my people in the face. 

All of the next day there was great trading 
of roots and buckskins, buffalo robes, and 
buffalo cow leather in the two camps, and 
many of the Flat Head hunters went across 
the river and ran buffalo, and brought in all 
the meat and hides their horses could stagger 
under. In the evening there was more feast- 
ing and visiting about, and I was called with 
No Runner to go here and there, and tell 
over and over about what I had done. But 
in each lodge I told it as shortly as I could; 
I was very unhappy, very anxious. I wanted 
to be by myself and think and pray. 

The next morning down came the lodges 
of both camps and we all moved up to the 
bottom on the south side of the river, just 
below the buffalo trap. The chiefs of both 
tribes gave orders that no one except the 
watchers could go up on the plain on the 
north side of the valley, and that all horses 
must be kept on the south side. As Little 
Otter and all the other callers had done, so 
220 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

did I : my lodge was set up by itself out in 
the bottom from the double camp of people. 
I crossed the river and went up on the cliff 
with some of the watchers, and saw the usual 
herds of buffalo up and down the coulee of 
water holes, and out from it. *' Keep a good 
watch," I told them, " for now I go to make 
medicine." I felt very strange giving that 
order. It did not seem right that one so 
young as I should tell people what to do. 

Ahsanaki was still with us. She had found 
one or two distant relatives, but she preferred 
to remain with us, and we were glad to have 
her in our lodge. But now I had to send 
both her and my sister to No Runner's lodge 
for a time. That evening I began my fast, 
and Suyaki painted herself black and re- 
mained with me, and sang with me the song 
of the ancient bull, and all the other medi- 
cine songs. Over and over we sang them, and 
I prayed and she prayed, and I fasted and 
dreamed, and my dreams were good. 

On the third evening of my fasting and 
praying, Suyaki returned from her lone walk 
to the river and told me that the people had 
repaired the old trap at the bottom of the 
cliff; that in passing, my sister had made 

221 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

signs to her that it was completed, and high- 
built and strong. I told Suyaki that they had 
probably had their work for nothing, as I 
would most likely fail to decoy the buffalo 
to the cliffs. 

" Be ashamed of yourself for saying that," 
she cried. " Look back over the past two 
moons and see how good the gods have been 
to us ; how everything that has happened has 
been leading up to what we are doing here 
in this lone lodge. Can't you see that you are 
to succeed ? Of course you are. Now, let us 
sing again the song of the ancient bull." 

Her words cheered me. We sang the song ; 
and the wolf song; and all the other songs, 
and when the night was late we made a last 
prayer, and slept. 

Came the fourth and last morning of my 
fast, and with the daylight a watcher ran to 
my lodge and told me that a big herd of 
buffalo was out opposite the mouth of the 
trap wings. I asked him to give word to 
No Runner to catch for me the little brown 
horse that I had recently taken from the 
enemy, and when the chief brought it in I 
took a robe, and a switch, and mounted it, 
and crossed the river and went up on the 
111 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

clifF. Sure enough, a big herd, a very big 
herd, was grazing away out on the ridges 
on the far side of the coulee, right where I 
would have placed it for my purpose could 
I have done so. I said to the four watchers : — 

" One of you go down and tell the people 
to come to the wings. Three of you stand 
here and warn them as they pass to go slowly, 
and when in their places be careful not to 
move and show themselves." 

I then led my horse to one side of the trail 
and sat down, and kept my eyes on the herd 
and prayed. 

I soon heard the soft steps of the people 
as they passed out to hide along the line of 
the wings, but I would not look at them. 
No Runner came and sat beside me. When 
he spoke his voice trembled, and I could see 
his hands trembling as though with cold. I 
myself was shivering. *' Oh, my son ! " he 
said, "I am so anxious for you to succeed 
in this, that I am sick. Do your best ! You 
must not fail to decoy the herd within the 
wings! " 

" Pray for me," I answered. " Pray hard ! 
Oh, I am afraid to go out there ; but go I 
must, and I go now." And with that I got 
223 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

on my horse and rode between the wings 
and past them into the coulee. 

On the first of the little ridges on the 
far side of the coulee I paused and looked 
back : a few people were still coming out 
along the wings, and I waited until the very 
last one of them took his place before going 
on. And as I went I was feeling very sick. 
I was making a last prayer to the gods, and 
to duck hawk in particular, when I again 
sighted the buffalo. I went on until they dis- 
covered me, and as they did so my courage 
came back ; I felt strong again. I guess the 
gods put courage into me right then, for my 
great trial before the people. 

As the first cow raised her head and stared 
at me, I lay low on my horse, and made my 
body take the shape of a hump of a buffalo. 
I had on a very large buffalo robe that 
covered me and the sides and length of 
my horse as well: to the eyes of those star- 
ing at me my horse and I were a buf- 
falo; perhaps a somewhat strangely shaped 
one, but still a buffalo. I did not give them 
time to look close and become suspicious : 
I wheeled around, and made the horse kick 
up and run for the wings, and almost at once 
224 



Apauk, Caller of BufiFalo 

the herd began to follow me. Down over the 
ridges I went, the thunder of their coming 
in my ears. Faster and faster I crossed the 
coulee and rode up into the mouth of the 
wings, and far in between them, and sud- 
denly turned east and passed through the 
line of the lower wing. Oh, what a happy 
feeling went all through me as I again turned 
and saw the big herd rushing straight to- 
ward the cliff, the people along each wing 
continually rising behind them and urging 
them on. The hoofs of the buffalo thundered 
and rattled, and raised a cloud of dust. The 
people shouted as they followed them. On 
and on they all went, and when the buffalo 
began to pour over the cliff the roar of their 
falling was like that of a mountain landslide. 
Over they all went, even to the last old cow, 
and the people rushed to the right and left 
and ran down the trail at each end of the 
cHff, and I was left alone there by the wings 
of the ancient trap. I rode to the edge of 
the cHff and dismounted and sat down, and 
looked down into the trap. The fence 
swarmed with men shooting and lancing the 
crippled and uninjured animals, and the dead 
heap of them was five or six bodies thick. 
225 



Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 

Soon the last cripple was killed, and the 
fence was pulled down in places, and in bands 
often or fifteen, men and women began to 
pull out the top animals and the butchering 
of the big herd was commenced and carried 
on all that day. I watched them a long time 
and then went down to the trap. How the 
people shouted out my name when they saw 
me coming: "Apauk! Apauk! Here is 
Apauk, Bringer of Plenty," they kept cry- 
ing. You can imagine how happy they made 
me. 

And so began my life as a caller of buffalo 
for the people; for my people, and the Black- 
feet and Kai'na and Gros Ventres as well. 
The four tribes of them kept me busy, and 
they made me rich with gifts. In time other 
young men learned to call herds, but I always 
did the calling for my own tribe. Then came 
the building of Fort Benton and the demand 
of the traders for robes, robes, and still more 
robes. Thatkept our hunters busy. They be- 
gan killing buffalo in great numbers ; hunt- 
ing them daily in the season of prime hides. 
The camp was always red with meat, and out 
on the plains thousands and thousands of car- 
casses rotted or were eaten by the wolves. 
126 



Apauk, Caller of BufFalo 

When that happened, there was no longer 
need for my services. Three years after the 
Fort was buih, I called a herd for the last 
time. ; After that I was obliged to go out and I 
hunt, or to send some one to hunt for me, 
when I wanted meat. I 

I wish that the white people had neverj 
come into my country. 



THE END 



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